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.