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)