Evicted students occupy W. Sumatra council building

Syofiardi Bachyul Jb, Padang

Some 400 poor students who were evicted from their government- owned school in the West Sumatra capital Padang took over the provincial legislative council on Wednesday in protest of their treatment.

Accompanied by their teachers, the students from the private Dhuafa Nusantara vocational school held classes in the council building on Wednesday.

The school, the first in Indonesia to provide free education for poor students, was evicted from its former home on Monday night by public order officers from the Padang municipal administration.

The eviction was particularly traumatic for those students who lived in the building, with public order officers dragging away some of the students by force.

At least four students fainted during the eviction. Some of the school's equipment was also damaged, including computers, desks and chairs. The diplomas of some recent graduates were also lost in the eviction.

Local authorities said the government-owned Asrama Transito building, which formerly housed the West Sumatra transmigration office and which the school had been renting, was needed for government use.

During the action on Wednesday, some of the students and their teachers opened classes in the corridors of the council building.

The students demanded the provincial administration provide them with a new building and pay for all of the damage caused during the eviction.

Isafat Ibrahim, who chairs the Islamic Bakti Nusantara Foundation, which funds and operates the school, asked councillors to help the students return to the Asrama Transito building.

"Otherwise, our some 980 students from poor families in the province will no longer be able to continue their education," he said.

Ibrahim also criticized the actions of the public order officers in seizing the school and forcibly removing the students from the building.

He said school officials had reported the case to the Padang Police and hoped some action would be taken against the public order officers.

The secretary of the council's Commission E, Marfendi, promised to resolve the situation by Aug. 10 at the latest.

In response, Ibrahim said the students would again march to the council if the councillors broke this promise.

Padang Education Office head Marjohan, who attended a meeting on Wednesday between councillors and the protesters, gave the students the opportunity to enroll in private or public schools.

But Ibrahim said that was not the best solution, pointing out that every year at least 30,000 junior high school graduates in the province could not afford to go on to high school.

The Dhuafa school was founded by the Bakti Nusantara Foundation in 1997 to provide free education to poor students. Since 2000, the foundation has rented the Asrama Transito building from the West Sumatra administration.

Some 6,000 students have graduated from the school since 1997, and many of them have gone on to find employment. The school is funded by a number of donors, and some of the teachers at the school volunteer their time.