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.