Education is for the rich

Education is for the rich

From Koran Tempo

When delivering an election campaign address in Saburai Square, Bandar Lampung, on June 28, vice presidential candidate Jusuf Kalla promised to provide more financial assistance to schoolchildren of poor parents. "Poor students will enjoy free education. Rich students will not enjoy free education but will have to pay more," he said.

While Jusuf Kalla deserves our praise in this respect, his idea has come late because, since the Soeharto era, children of rich parents have always been required to pay higher school fees than those that come from badly-off families.

The problem lies in the implementation of this policy. Rich parents try, by hook or by crook, to send their children to government-funded good schools while children from poor families have to enter private schools. They must pay higher school fees and in return receive education of a lower quality. The children of such people as Jusuf Kalla, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Wiranto, for example, can easily be enrolled in excellent, favored schools.

In future, the government should ensure that there will be an equal opportunity for both poor and rich students to enjoy access to good education. It is the government's job to make good education affordable to the children of even the poorest parents.

The government should also consider requiring rich families to make a donation for school development. That way the rich would subsidize the poor.

HUMALA PONTAS S. Jakarta