Dropouts ready to carve out a life

Sari P. Setiogi, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The crowd of visitors is encouraging to sculptor Yono on his debut in a national-level exhibition that has sent him to Jakarta for the first time in his life.

Yono and his colleagues are showing a collection of stone statues of Buddha during the Education, Youth and Sports expo at the Jakarta Convention Center. The exhibition will run until Sunday.

"People call me Yono the sculptor," Yono beamed as he watched the visitors scrutinize his work.

The 22-year-old says he owes his carving skills to the Kyai (cleric) Suratman Community Learning Center in Bantul, south of Yogyakarta.

Four years ago, Yono was working for a sand quarrying firm. The job entailed a lot of difficult work under the hot sun, for which he was paid Rp 2,500 (26 US cents) a day. He said it was the best job he could get since he dropped out of junior high school.

He would not have been able to break out of this life of poverty if he had not met the learning center's organizers, who offered not only to teach him a useful skill, but also gave him the opportunity to finish his schooling.

Data from the Central Statistics Agency in 2003 showed that 36 million out of 53 million children between the ages of seven and 18 year were forced to drop out of school, mostly because of poverty.

The education ministry allows dropouts to complete their studies through special programs that allow them to earn either their junior high school or high school diplomas.

There are about 600,000 certified learning centers across the country registered with the Directorate General for Out-Of-School Education and Youth Affairs at the Ministry of National Education.

The program run by the Kyai Suratman center also provides students with life skills to help them become bakers, tailors, sculptors, drivers and snake hunters. Students attend classes three times a week during the program.

Yono said he joined the center in order to change his life, especially after he married his girlfriend, Ati.

"I have a better chance now. Since I joined the program, I now have a junior high school certificate and learned to be a carver," he told The Jakarta Post.

One of Yono's instructors, Moh. Nurudin, said most of his students were women.

"It is more difficult to attract males because they prefer to work as they desperately need to support their families," he said.

Nurudin said with government assistance of some Rp 300,000 per student annually, the center had helped 120 men and women earn their junior high school and high school diplomas since 1998.

Yono and his friends have regular orders for earthenware or stone statues.

"We once received an order for 300,000 statues in one month," he said.

A statue costs between Rp 35,000 and Rp 350,000 each, depending on the material and size.

However, Nurudin says his students still have trouble meeting direct buyers.

"Most of our customers buy our products to sell them overseas at much higher prices.

"It is not fair for our sculptors. We are participating in the exhibition in order to find direct buyers," he said.

An instructor at a learning center in Bekasi, West Java, Mulyana, told the Post he taught about 400 dropouts who were trying to earn their junior high school and high school diplomas.

"They need help, otherwise they might resort to crimes. We welcome any school dropouts to attend our training program," he said.

The main problem his institution faces is a shortage of professional instructors who are willing to devote their time to the program.

"For example, we have 13 students who are interested in producing coconut jelly. But only three of them have managed to graduate with the necessary skills because of a lack of instructors," he said.