Education hampered in conflict-torn provinces

Education hampered in conflict-torn provinces

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Prolonged conflict has severely disrupted education in Aceh,
Maluku and Irian Jaya, thereby seriously threatening future human
resources development in the restive provinces.

Hundreds of thousands of school-age children have been
deprived of the right to an adequate education, which students in
other provinces enjoy. Hundreds of school buildings and other
educational facilities have been badly damaged in outbreaks of
the conflict and thousands of teachers have been forced to stay
away from their work.

More than 100,000 school-age children in Aceh missed school
over the last three years because of the mounting conflict
between the military and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). Some of
them stayed at home to help their parents while others followed
their families to take refuge inside and outside the province.

According to data at the local education and culture office,
160 private and state elementary and high schools were badly
damaged since 1999 and, so far, none have been repaired.

"Aceh will be facing a lost generation in the next two decades
since hundreds of thousands of school-age children could not go
to school because of the increasing violence and the uncertainty.
The conflict will widen and become complicated in scale since the
separatist movement will gain greater support from the uneducated
younger generation," Abdul Hadi Arifin, rector of the
Malikulsaleh University in Lhokseumawe told The Jakarta Post on
Thursday.

He said many school buildings were torn down by rebels because
they were considered as places that propagate Indonesian
ideology, and many others were used as hiding places by rebels in
fighting against security personnel.

According to him, the current situation could be
counterproductive when uneducated people take up arms to join
GAM.

Sukarni, chief of the local education office, said she had
proposed an allocation of Rp 17 billion in the province's 2002
budget, to carry out the compulsory nine-year education program
as well as to fight against prevalent illiteracy in the province.

In Maluku, thousands of students have classes in makeshift
structures in their refuge camps since their schools have been
damaged during the three-year sectarian conflict that has
displaced more than 750,000 people.

Most students have gained financial assistance from local and
foreign institutions, besides the government, to allow them to
attend the school classes since the conflict has damaged their
families' finances.

Dozens of elementary school buildings in Papua lay idle as
hundreds of teachers from Java and Sulawesi have returned to
their hometowns due to the frequent intimidation and terror by
Free Papua Movement (OPM) rebels.

Jerry Hourissa, chief of the local education and culture
office, admitted that besides the political instability, poor
economic and primitive conditions has discouraged most parents
from sending their children to school.

"It will take decades to make indigenous people aware of the
importance of education and to lift them from their current
conditions," he said.

Hourissa said that under autonomy, the administration would
ensure free education for all elementary and high school students
as of May 2002.

"We will also recruit more qualified teaching staff with
higher salaries and provide special incentives for those
stationed in remote areas in the province," he said.

Similar to the education problem in Aceh, the government has
yet to pay adequate attention to solve education problems,
including encouraging teaching staff to return from their home
provinces, where they returned to avoid conflict.

More than 2,000 school-age East Timorese children are having
classes in camps in an education program carried out by Roman
Catholic priests in West Timor, due to the unstable condition in
their homeland.

Father Daniel Klau Nahak of the Franciscan Order said the
"special" education program sponsored by the Catholic Charity
Foundation since March 2001 was aimed at educating refugees'
children, who could not be absorbed into formal schools because
of the limited capacity of existing formal schools and their
parents' poor financial condition.

"Students are taught reading and mathematics, two fields that
will be important for their future, should they not continue to
study in formal schools after they go back home," he said.

Venny Kappu, a teacher in the camp school, said almost all
students that graduated from the education program did not
continue formal schooling but went to work on their families'
farms.