Education ministry to submit Rp 25t budget

Education ministry to submit Rp 25t budget

JAKARTA (JP): The Ministry of National Education is set to
submit a Rp 25 trillion education budget for 2001.

"This proposal, however, does not include the budget for
sports," Minister Yahya Muhaimin told journalists on Thursday.

The proposed budget is higher than the current nine-month
budget in which Rp 11 trillion was allocated for education.

"The figure (for sports) is still being calculated. It will
probably be set at about Rp 12 billion for the 2001," he said.

The education budget for 2001 will be distributed in three
sectors and 14 programs.

The three sectors are education, youth and national culture.

Most of the education budget will go to the first and second
sectors, which will be allocated about 80 percent of the total
budget.

"Our main concern is to deal with the impact of the economic
crisis that led to student drop outs, as well as lifting the
quality and welfare of the human resources such as salary for
teachers," Yahya said.

The ministry also plans to give scholarships for a total of
1.7 million elementary school students, 1.6 million junior high
school students and 495,000 high school students.

The operational fund assistance for state and private schools
will be distributed among 103,000 elementary schools, 18,000
junior high schools and 9,000 high schools.

On the disbursement of funds from the national education
ministry to the ministry of tourism for the directorate general
of culture, Yahya further asserted that some of the related
subjects such as language, literature and history would stay as
part of education units.

"Actually it is hard to merge the culture and tourism in one
ministry as tourism is more commercial. The two subjects have a
broad distinction," Yahya added.

Convention

In a separate development, experts speaking at a media
briefing marking the end of the National Education Convention
here on Thursday stressed that the government would be committing
a serious crime if it abandoned people's rights to get good
education.

The low percentage of the state budget allocated to this field
is one indication of the government's unwillingness to improve
the education system, education experts remarked.

"It is indeed a crime," said Hamid Hasan a lecturer of
Indonesian Education University (UPI).

"Therefore, we urged the government to increase the budget to
25 percent (of the state budget)," Hamid added.

Currently less than 10 percent of the state budget is
allocated for education.

Earlier in the week educational expert H.A.R. Tilaar also
warned that regional autonomy in the field of education must not
undermine the forging of a sense of national identity which has
become an important part of the national curriculum.

"Regional autonomy in education from provincial to district
levels must be conducted within the frame of a national policy to
avoid strong regional egoism which could later endanger the
nation's unity," said Tilaar.

"A country which has no less than 300 tribes and ethnic groups
should not go their own way when drafting education concepts. If
such a kind of autonomy is run, our national integration will
vanish," said Tilaar who is also director of the Management
Institute of Jakarta State University.

Tilaar further told a session at the National Education
Convention here that education programs in the regions must start
with the empowerment of existing units such as the Parent-Teacher
Associations (BP3) and the Education and Teaching (P&P) units at
all administrative levels.

"Teacher and parent forums must be involved in the creation of
education programs and not only act as money collectors...like
they usually do now. Parents who consider their children's
education an investment must be actively involved".

"The P&P units in mayoralty/regency levels must be coordinated
with the provincial education and teaching offices as ruled in
the Regional Autonomy Law No. 22/1999 and Government Regulation
No. 25/2000 on the implementation of the law," Tilaar
said.

An interactive approach between community-based education from
the grassroot level and the outline from the central government
is needed so that people can have a better sense of belonging to
the education system.

The Ministry of National Education should be the one in charge
of determining the standard of education for elementary and
higher levels (university/college) as well as nonformal
education, he added.

Tilaar also stated his disagreement if decentralization in
education was done only in terms of switching the bureaucratic
system and infrastructure from the central government to the
regions.

"It's the same as creating centralization in the region. What
we must do is to dig out resources from the grass root level and
at the same time share some of the authority with them."

The government should set the standard and provide supervision
and guidance to the people, he said.

"Autonomy has to be implemented in a 'learning by doing'
process," Tilaar added. (09/edt)