For some in E. Kalimantan, education is costly

For some in E. Kalimantan, education is costly

Rusman, Samarinda

While other teenagers are now in their first weeks back at
school, Warsih has a different story. At 16, Warsih has had to
drop out of high school this year due to her parents' inability
to pay her school fees and provide school materials.

Now, she only helps her mother on the family farm and brings
lunch to her father, who works as a farm laborer. "I'd prefer to
give upschool and give my younger brother a chance to complete
junior high school. I now just help my mother by bringing lunch
to my father working in the fields," said Warsih, a resident of
Kutai Kertanegara regency.

Warsih's mother Hasanah, 37, said that her daughter had
earlier wanted to stay on at high school, but at registration
time the school had demanded various fees and payments, ranging
from the cost of a uniform to admission fees of Rp 500,000
(US$55.50).

Given the family's monthly income of only Rp 300,000 from the
farm and her husband's monthly wages, they finally decided their
daughter would have to leave school temporarily.

"Hopefully there will be some kind of dispensation from the
school next year," she said recently at their farm in Teluk
Dalam, Tenggarong Seberang, Kutai Kertanegara regency, East
Kalimantan, which is located about 25 kilometers from Samarinda,
capital of the province. Warsih was seen helping her mother
uproot cassava plants to be sold later.

Mendi, 9, a first grader at an elementary school in Sedulun,
Sesayap district, Bulungan regency, has been slightly more
fortunate than Warsih. He will be able to attend school although
he has to go barefoot to the school, which is located in a forest
area. "This is my first day at school. I want to become a logger
like my father when I grow up," he said recently.

These two examples show how difficult it is for poor people in
the resource-rich province of East Kalimantan to access formal
education.

The state of education in almost every regency and mayoralty
in East Kalimantan is inferior, said the head of the East
Kalimantan Education Council, Awang Faroek Ishak. "The provincial
administration has no will to improve the situation," he said.

The government has not allocated the required 20 percent from
the provincial budget for education as required by law. The
education budget this year is only Rp 130 billion (US$ 13.7
million). "The allotted money should have been around Rp 600
billion," Awang said. The overall East Kalimantan budget this
year stands at Rp 3 trillion.

The education budget could be used to assist needy students,
improve education quality, upgrade school facilities and renovate
school buildings. "If these requirements are not met, education
in East Kalimantan will continue to be deficient," he said.

"Education here is in a sorry state. East Kalimantan is a rich
province, but education lags far behind compared to other
provinces. The council will urge the provincial administration to
allocate the required 20 percent out of the provincial budget on
education," Awang said.