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.