Economists criticize new move to boost spending on education
A'an Suryana and M. Nunung Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Economists say that an article in the newly amended Constitution stipulating that the central and regional governments allocate 20 percent of their budgets for education would not be feasible without hefty spending cuts on other sectors like health and infrastructure.
"The government will not be able to meet the target in the near future," Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) economist Pande Radja Silalahi told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
He pointed out that the new target was three times larger than the previous target of 7 percent of the state budget.
"Education is, of course, important as it is a human investment. But it will be impossible to meet the target in the near future as our state budget suffers a deficit," said Pande.
The 2002 state budget deficit is projected at 2.5 percent of gross domestic product. The relatively huge deficit is a result of the massive government bailout of ailing banks during the late 1990s financial crisis.
Pande also said that a 20 percent budget allocation was relatively high as in developed countries like the U.S. only 15 percent to 20 percent of the budget was allocated for education.
The People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) ended its Annual Session on Sunday and reached agreement on changes to the 1945 Constitution.
One of the amended articles in the Constitution is Article 31 on education, which rules that the state budget and regional government budgets must allocate 20 percent of their spending on education.
Pande said that forcing the government to allocate 20 percent of its budget for education would sacrifice spending on other very important sectors like health and infrastructure.
"The allocation (for education) should not be too high, as there are still other important programs, like health and infrastructure, which need a huge amount of funds," he said.
University of Indonesia economist Mohammad Ichsan concurred, saying that the new ruling would also create serious trouble for regional governments whose top priority was not education.
He pointed out as an example that Jakarta's top priority was not education as the literacy rate here was already relatively high.
He added that putting a specific target on budget allocations for the education sector would make the government less flexible in designing the state budget.
"The (budget) target should not be specified. Every region has its own priorities, and it might be inefficient if one region is forced to allocate at least 20 percent of the budget for education, while it has a higher priority than education," said Ichsan.
Meanwhile, economist at the Institute for Development, Economic and Finance (Indef) Didik Rachbini supported the new move for higher spending on education because it would help improve the quality of the people.
He explained that the new ruling would not necessarily threaten spending on other sectors because the government could force indebted bank owners to repay their huge debts to the government.
"This money could be used for higher spending on education," he said.
Education expert Arief Rachman urged the government to introduce measures to make sure that the higher budget allocation really went to improve the quality of education in the country.
"In the past, the education budget often went to research and development departments at other ministries outside the Ministry of Education and Culture," he said.