Flaws seen in bill on education
Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Educationists are demanding changes in the bill on the national education system currently being deliberated at the House of Representatives because it does not embrace the people's need for better education.
At least 300 school headmasters, directors of private school foundations and activists attending a one-day seminar held by the Private Schools Consultative Body (BMPS) here on Saturday questioned the substance of the bill.
They said that the bill discriminated against women and the disabled, and failed to give attention to the non-formal education system and poor children, who could not enjoy a decent education.
"The bill deals only with the elite and is focused on the big cities. It has ignored the principle that education is not about government subsidies, but peoples' rights," Missiyah of Alternative Education for Women (Kapal Perempuan) remarked.
Article 25 of the bill categorizes women's education as out-of-school education, which is a supplement to formal education, while no clause in the bill regulates the government's obligation to provide equal education opportunities for the disabled.
A speaker at the seminar, BMPS director Toenggoel P. Siagian, highlighted the bill's contradictory articles, which allow the schools to manage their own funds and to set curricula based on the students' ability.
"But on the other hand the bill also wipes out the spirit of the society-based education by maintaining the government's power to supervise national education," he said.
He referred to Article 8 of the bill, which states that the society has the right to participate in the planning, implementation, supervision and evaluation of education programs.
However, Article 10 of the bill gives the government and the regional administrations the right to regulate, supervise and evaluate the education programs.
Another speaker, linguist Bambang Kaswanti Purwa, who was a member of the bill's drafting team, admitted the weaknesses of the bill and invited the people to make corrections.
Siagian deplored the legislators' failure to socialize the draft among educators.
The draft law was one of six House's initiative bills which should have been endorsed during the last sitting period between Jan. 7 and March 28.
The House has also proposed bills on presidency, bank credit, child protection, medical profession and sports.
The People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) ad hoc committee I for constitutional amendment agreed recently to recommend that the central government and local governments allocate 10 percent of the state and provincial budgets respectively for education.
If the MPR approves the fourth constitutional amendments in August, the new legislation on budget allocation for education will take effect in 2003.