Govt freezes licensing of new technical schools

Govt freezes licensing of new technical schools

JAKARTA (JP): The city will not get any new private technical
schools, or at least not until existing ones are improved, an
official of the Ministry of Education and Culture said.

Kusnan Ismukanto, the head of the city office of the Ministry,
said that out of 107 private technical schools, only eight
percent have adequate equipment.

In 1993, according to the statistics office records, there
were 116 technical high schools, including the state-run ones.
This represents a 10 percent increase from the previous year.

"In the future setting up new technical schools will not be
permitted," he was quoted by Antara as saying at a meeting
yesterday between the City Police and technical school
principals. It was hosted by Col. Benny Setiawan, the City Police
director for public counseling.

Kusnan said the lack of equipment at technical schools is one
factor which leads to the large incidence of student involvement
in brawls.

"In general technical school students also have lower grades
compared to other secondary schools. They lack the necessary
spirit to study," Kusnan said.

On Monday councilors revealed that fights from 1992 to 1995
predominantly involved technical school students.

Supriadi, one of the principals, suggested that troublesome
students should be expelled, but they should be provided with
special education outside schools.

Riswandha Imawan, a researcher who is studying mass
destructive behavior with the city's public order agency, said
yesterday that students of technical schools experience a
different environment compared to those from schools with a
general curricula.

"Technical schools do not have a zoning system," he said,
referring to the fact that other schools limit their intake to
certain areas.

Technical school students find that their schoolmates are all
from households in various areas of the city's outskirts "who
have lost out in the city's rapid development."

The students spend more time and energy in being on time for
school Riswandha said, an additional pressure other students may
not face.

And what is worse, "their similar background instills a mutual
feeling of being a deprived group," he said.

Also, while their curriculum is specific, entrance tests to
many companies, such as airlines, require knowledge gained
through the general curriculum.

"The situation is really pitiful...technical schools really
need the attention of the Ministry of Education and Culture,"
Riswandha said.

The study, coordinated by Cornelius Lay of the Department of
Social and Political Science at the Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada
University, was commissioned by the city's public order office.

The team came up with indications that brawls are made more
complicated by business interests. So far there is no clue as to
who is paying students to fight. But Riswandha said brawls in
Surabaya, also a rapidly developing city, occur in strategic
business areas like the fights in Jakarta.

"The schools which have the larger plots are consistent
targets," he said. (anr)