City Council approves new scholarship promotion drive

JAKARTA (JP): The City Council has approved a new regulation governing scholarships given to primary, junior high school, senior high school and university students. The funds will come from the city budget and from the Islamic Alms coordination body (Bazis), a semi-governmental agency.

Approval was given in a session held yesterday to change the old provincial regulation no. 5/1957 in which only municipal employees and high school and university students were eligible for the scholarship.

According to governor Surjadi Soedirja, a total of 10,067 people since 1952 have received municipal scholarships including 1,800 in the school year of 1994/1995. The city has provided Rp 229 million (US$105,142.33) and the Bazis Rp 480 million.

Commission A, which oversees government affairs, and Commission E, handling people's welfare, presented their proposals in the yesterday's session.

Commission A has approved giving more authority to Bazis, which originally acted only as a financial source to the Jakarta Scholarship Foundation, to organize its own scholarship fund, to select students and to establish its scholarship panel.

The commission also urged the city administration to cooperate with private companies and individual parties to contribute funds for the program through the foundation as donations will not provide enough to accommodate the thousands of students striving for higher education.

Commission E stressed that the foundation should be fair in managing and allocating the fund and also in selecting candidates for the scholarship as complaints have been raised by many with respect to the programs.

"Complaints, such as slow payment and unfair selection, should be followed by appropriate actions," said Laidin H. Sinaga from commission E. (yns)