Education too commercialized: PDI

Education too commercialized: PDI

JAKARTA (JP): Escalating school fees are threatening the
country's efforts to promote education for all, the Indonesian
Democratic Party (PDI) warned yesterday.

Spokesman for the minority party Bambang Mintoko said the
growing tendency among urban schools to "commercialize" education
was particularly worrying.

"The increasing educational costs that parents have to
shoulder will deprive more and more common people of a proper
education," he said when presenting the party's views on the
1998/2003 State Policy Guideline to a People's Consultative
Assembly plenary session.

"The current trend suggests that only the wealthy will soon be
able to afford to send their children to school," he added.

Bambang said that super schools were so expensive that
parents' socioeconomic status was often the prime consideration
in admitting students.

"More super schools have been built. Many are becoming
exclusive and cater to wealthy families of certain ethnic
backgrounds," he said in an obvious reference to people of
Chinese descent.

The PDI, which is a 1973 amalgam of nationalist and tiny
Christian parties, warned that such exclusiveness could spark
social envy and deepen the existing educational disparity.

The government-backed Golkar faction highlighted that the
government's nine-year mandatory education ruling had increased
the proportion of elementary school graduates who continued into
secondary education to 72.5 percent in 1997/1998 from 43.4
percent in 1993/1994.

The government's target for the sixth Five-Year Development
Plan, which will end this month, was only 66.2 percent, faction
spokesman Fahmi Idris said.

The faction also noted that over the past five years, the
number of college lecturers had increased to 127,200 from 88,700
five years ago. (pan)