Experts and parents concerned over education gap

Experts and parents concerned over education gap

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

These are the months when many parents of school-age children
are very worried, especially parents from the lower income
brackets.

One can even hear conversations on buses between mothers
expressing the fear that their children will not be able to
attain a good education due to financial constraints.

"We have to know our limits," 32-year-old Susilowati told The
Jakarta Post recently about the reason behind her decision to opt
for a less sought-after senior high school for her 15-year-old
son. "He is not a bright student and we only have a limited
amount of money."

As if the unwritten fact that good schools are expensive was
not enough to worry poor people, the government made this fact
official through a regulation issued last month.

In the Regulation on National Education Standards, all schools
are to be evaluated according to standards set by the newly-
established National Education Standardization Board (BSNP).

The board, which is said to be independent but which in fact
has all of its 15 members directly appointed by the national
education minister, is tasked with developing national standards
on content, processes, competencies, human resources,
infrastructure, management and funding in the education field.

Schools will then be labeled as "independent" if they meet the
national requirements and "standard" if they are considered to be
below average.

Meanwhile, a draft government regulation on the funding and
management of education provides that those schools designated
as "independent" can charge higher fees than the standard fees
set by the board.

The Ministry of National Education's director general for
primary and secondary education, Indra Djati Sidi, argues that
the scheme is intended to cross-subsidize the education of the
poor.

However, experts have opposed the draft, saying that it is
discriminatory and would further segregate students based upon
economic status.

"There is already a segmentation of schools as between the
middle to upper classes and the lower classes," the director of
Paramadina University's Institute for Educational Reform, Hutomo
Dananjaya, said.

The new ruling, if it takes effect, will institutionalize
discrimination, especially in public schools, said Hutomo.

Hutomo argued that the regulation contradicted the National
Education Law (No. 20/2003), adding that the government had the
responsibility of providing education that was non-discriminatory
in terms of religion, race, ethnicity, gender and other
education-irrelevant considerations.

Meanwhile, education expert Arief Rachman, who is also the head
of the Jakarta Laboratory School, said that in order to prevent
gaps between "rich" and "poor" schools and to avoid
discrimination, it would be necessary to map out schools based on
their financial capabilities, as long as this did not involve
labeling.

"The government and local administrations need to know which
schools are financially stable and which are not so that funding
can be allocated appropriately," he said.

Arief also said that this identification of schools needed to
be balanced by an educational process that bridged the gap
between the "rich" and "poor" schools.

This was important as currently in Jakarta alone the public
was already familiar with the division between popular and less
popular schools, particularly as regards state schools. (003)