Education needs more funds, says Unicef official

JAKARTA (JP): The allocation for education in the state budget should at least be doubled as a requisite for improving the economy with priority given to the primary and junior high levels, the country representative of Unicef said Tuesday.

Stephen J. Woodhouse said education, particularly that of children, was one of the sectors worst hit by the crisis. Indonesia, he noted, only had 10 percent of its budget allocated for education.

Woodhouse was launching Unicef's State of the World's Children Report 1999 with Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare and Poverty Eradication, Haryono Suyono.

He mentioned that Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand provided up to 23 percent of their state budget for education while the figure was 16 percent in the Philippines.

Students of the state-run teacher training college (IKIP) who held a demonstration on National Teachers Day last month also demanded a higher budget for education.

The report launched in London on the same day by Unicef executive director Carol Bellamy, revealed more than 130 million children of primary school age including 73 million girls in developing countries were growing up without the benefit of elementary education.

Woodhouse said, "We are all concerned that because of the crisis the achievements of over 50 years of independence are now heading into reverse with Indonesia facing the possibility of a lost generation lacking in health, nutrition, schooling and other rights." He cited the increase of women dying in labor from 22,000 last year to 35,000 this year; the increase of under-fives suffering from malnutrition from 8 million before the crisis to the present 12 million; and the increase of drop-outs from junior high school from up to 3 million before the crisis to a present estimate of 6 million.

But he added the public and government were "very responsive" to these challenges and had raised some of Unicef's proposals.

One was the urgent improvement in access to education for children in remote regions particularly in eastern Indonesia.

It was in eastern Indonesian that illiteracy was the highest and where school enrollment was the lowest, Woodhouse said.

Other urgent measures included priorities being given to the education of girls, street children and working children.

He said the vision of Education For All in the Unicef report was a call for reform or revolution in the field, in line with the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child.

The vision included the appeal that the state played a main role in the reform of education. "But where many children do not gain education, governments should create conditions where non- government organizations, community groups, religious bodies and private sector businesses can give their contribution," he said.

To prevent "a terrible waste" of "going to school and coming out unprepared" the report said, "learning for life" was urgent, which required a democratic learning environment for better preparation of children for the world of work and society.

To overcome problems posed by rigid, conventional educational systems, Unicef urged Indonesia's curricula be adjusted to local conditions, improvement of teachers' welfare, improvement of teaching practices and removal of language constraints.

"Especially for eastern Indonesia I think there is a language problem," Woodhouse said. The Unicef report cited examples in countries where classes in local languages proved more effective among children of minorities. (edt/anr)