Funding still hampers compulsory education

Funding still hampers compulsory education

By Yoko N. Sari

JAKARTA (JP): With the enforcement of the nine-year compulsory
education program today, the following incident calls to mind the
problems already faced in enforcing compulsory grade-school
education and the implications for the expanded policy.

Some time back a nine-year old girl wept, begged and nagged at
her father to send her to elementary school with her friends.

Her low-income father had no money to pay the enrollment fee.
Finally he borrowed some money from his employer, but by then she
was already two years behind her friends.

Her father will face a similar problem when she wants to
enroll in junior high school as the government now requires. It
is most likely that he will not be able to pay the even higher
enrollment fee required for secondary school.

The story reflects the general situation of the country's
education sector. Despite the six-year compulsory education
policy introduced on May 2, 1984, many children remain out of
school. Many parents cannot afford to send their children to
school or are forced to delay their children's desire for an
education because of their difficult financial situation.

In Indonesia, the word "compulsory" has little significance in
terms of the fact that education costs a great deal and people
cannot be forced to do the impossible.

Z.A. Achmady, the Director General of Basic and Middle
Education, told The Jakarta Post that the government's "tuition
free" policy does not really mean that compulsory education will
be free because parents are always required to make
"contributions" to the school's coffers.

If parents did not pay the various fees the schools could not
operate. One parent even complained that since the compulsory
program education was first introduced, he has had to pay more
than previously.

"The contributions are decided upon by the Parents-Teachers
Association, and it is aimed to help the school," Achmady said.

Many parents also complained about the "monthly donations" the
schools demand as well.

"There are various fees, and they all sound obscure. For
example, we have to pay the "seat" fee, the "fence fee" and other
donations. The amount comes to more than the monthly tuition fee
required before the system was introduced," one parent commented.

A teacher of the SD 003 state elementary school in Pejaten,
Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta, told the Post that the school needs
the donations because although it receives financial aid from the
Ministry of Education and Culture, the amount is not adequate to
cover its daily activities.

"But we always discuss the amount of the donations, no matter
how small they are, with the parents," she said.

She added that the parents of students who clearly cannot
afford the donations are exempted from the obligation.

Aside from the various monthly fees, parents also have to pay
an enrollment fee, which varies from Rp 50,000 to Rp 70,000, or
more. For poor parents, the amount is out of reach.

The financial constraints, combined with parents' low level of
awareness of the importance of basic education have caused around
two million elementary-school-age children to miss the chance at
an education.

Beginning

Yesterday marked the beginning of the nine-year compulsory
education program for children aged between seven to 15 years
old. Under the new compulsory system, students who finish
elementary school must continue their education to junior high
school.

The program is aimed to educate as many people as possible to
increase the quality of the nation's human resources in order to
enable Indonesia to better compete with other nations in the
future.

This program is the continuation of the six-year compulsory
education policy, which has reached 94 percent adherence, with
29.5 million children aged between seven and 12 years old having
started grade school. However the number of dropouts is high, at
1.2 million children per year. The number of children who finish
grade school, but who do not continue their educations is equally
high, at another 1.2 million per year.

In general, grade-school children seem happy with the idea of
going to junior high school.

"We know about the compulsory education from a song," said a
bunch of children in South Sukabumi, West Java, when asked
whether they knew about the new program.

They all quickly nodded when asked whether they would like to
continue their studies into junior high school.

It is feared, however, that this strong desire for a higher
education will end in disappointment for many of them, when they
find out their parents cannot afford to pay for their further
education.

Most of the dropouts will be forced to enter the work force
faster than other children who are lucky enough to be able to
continue their studies.

Obstacles

From the very beginning of the plan, Minister of Education and
Culture Wardiman Djojonegoro has stressed that several obstacles
are facing the nine-year compulsory education program.

Among these are the chronic lack of classrooms, books, the
poor quality of teachers and the parents' low level of awareness
of the importance of education.

Basyuni Suriaamihardja, chairman of the Indonesian Teachers
Association, noted that some parents, particularly those with low
incomes, do not believe in providing education beyond grade
school for their children.

"It's because they notice that the unemployment rate among the
educated is still high," Basyuni said as quoted by Antara news
agency recently.

Besides, there are still a high number of children who are
forced to work to add to their family's income, he explained.

"We need to make people realize that sending their children to
school should not necessarily be linked with providing a
guarantee for their future employment. A formal education is more
an effort to allow children to find themselves, to express
themselves," he said.

The quality of the nation's teachers is one of the most
important factors in ensuring a low-cost education, and thus
encouraging low-income parents to send their children to school.

When the quality of the teachers is high, elementary school
students can achieve high scores on the nationwide state final
examinations. With high scores, children can enter state-owned
junior high schools, which are cheaper, though not necessarily of
lower quality, than private schools.

Minister Wardiman pointed out that even when teachers are
highly skilled, their ability to adequately convey knowledge to
their students is poor because there are too many students in one
class.

"The implementation of the teaching method is not effective,
and it causes our students to look stupid," Wardiman said.

Because of their poor scores, many students have to study at
private schools, which are more expensive. This has led to high-
cost education nationwide.

Students at a private elementary school in South Sukabumi,
West Java, for example, have to pay Rp 15,000 (US$7) every year.
Their parents consider the amount too high because most of them
are peasants or plantation workers.

In Bogor, also in West Java, students at a private junior high
school have to pay Rp 70,000 ($32.71) in donations and another Rp
7,000 ($3.3) in tuition fees per month.

The ministry has responded to this situation by providing
financial assistance to private junior high schools. Although the
amount of the subsidy is not high enough to cover the majority of
expenses, at least it helps schools cut their tuition fees. It is
expected that more children will be able to study at private
junior high schools with this kind of assistance.

The minister explained that besides the overcrowded classes,
the inadequate incomes and substandard welfare of the teachers is
another factor behind their poor performance.

He said it's difficult to improve the teachers' welfare
because decisions on salary and benefits are made by other
government agencies, including the Ministry of Finance and the
National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas). Meanwhile, the
government's ability to hire teachers as civil servants is also
limited.

"There are a lot of teachers. The problem is the government
does not have enough money to employ them all as civil servants,"
Wardiman said.

In the Sixth Five-Year Development Plan (Repelita VI), for
example, the government is planning to recruit a total of 150,000
new teachers for elementary and junior high schools.

Facilities

To solve the problem of overcrowded classrooms, the government
also plans to build 3,000 new schools, mostly junior high
schools, and 29,000 classrooms to accommodate 6.8 million
students out of the 12.8 million children estimated to be in the
13 to 15 year old age bracket.

However, it is already clear that all those facilities will
fall short of accommodating all the children needing education.
And with the limited budget provided by the government, it is
expected to take 15 years before the nine-year compulsory program
can be called a success.

And yet, Minister Wardiman maintains optimism, often pointing
out that the program can be expected to be fully implemented in
10 years with the help of public participation.

"I hope people will participate by building more schools or
classrooms themselves," Wardiman said.

Public participation can be realized in many ways, such as
through the parent-teacher organizations. Real estate firms can
also build schools in their housing complexes.

The Parent-Teachers Association of the SMPN 3 junior high
school in Semarang, Central Java, has started by contributing Rp
100 million ($46,729) for the construction of new classrooms.

Quite a lot of parents are eager to help their children's
schools.

"I don't mind the high tuition fees because I believe that
education will help my children in the future," Iswandirini, a
secretary at a pharmaceutical company said. She has two sons to
educate.

However, she also suggested that the government play a bigger
role in preparing the necessary facilities to make the program a
success.

"The system is good. The question now is whether the
government is ready to build more facilities to back up the
program," she said.