Govt to abolish state school fees

Govt to abolish state school fees

JAKARTA (JP): The government is to abolish tuition fees for
all state schools in an attempt to ease the devastating impact of
the monetary crisis which has resulted in nearly one out of every
three children dropping out of school.

Minister of Education and Culture Juwono Sudarsono said the
government would also provide free books and, if families could
not afford it, children would be exempted from purchasing new
school uniforms.

"In principle the government wants to save students who are
affected by the economic crisis as their parents are no longer
able to support their education," Juwono said after attending a
monthly cabinet meeting on social welfare and poverty alleviation
programs.

It is not clear whether state senior vocational high schools
are include in the scheme.

After the three-hour meeting, Juwono briefed journalists
together with Minister of Cooperatives Adi Sasono and Minister of
Information Yunus Yosfiah.

Without providing details, Juwono revealed the daunting
statistic that 30 percent of school children across the country
had dropped out of school since the monetary crisis hit Indonesia
last July.

The country's per capita annual income has plunged from about
US$1,100 before the crisis in July to less than $300.

Minister of Manpower Fahmi Idris said last week that at least
15 million people would become unemployed this year.

According to Juwono the government will provide annual
scholarships worth Rp 120,000 (US$9) each for 4 percent of the
country's 29 million primary school pupils, and Rp 240,000 for
16.1 percent of the 9.6 million junior high school students.

The government will also allocate Rp 2 million annually as an
operational cost for each of the 69,300 primary schools, or 40
percent of the total government schools which are considered most
needy.

Another Rp 4 million will go to help each of the 30,391 junior
high schools, which make up 40 percent of all junior high schools
in the country.

However the government does not feel able to provide financial
assistance to the country's 5 million senior high school students
and the 185,000 university students.

"We are still waiting for the agreement between the government
and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as the government is
very dependent on the IMF," Juwono explained.

Juwono said the government program would be funded by the
World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in addition to
its own financial resources.

"This is our fate now," Adi remarked about the dependence on
the international agencies.

When asked about the fate of private school students Juwono
acknowledged that his ministry could not do much.

He expressed hope that private schools would do their best to
help their students who are facing severe financial hardships.

"I also hope that students are no longer forced to buy books,"
Juwono noted.

Juwono promised to give attention to teachers whose salaries
were often cut by their superiors without higher approvals.

"I have heard this complaint since 1957, when I was still at
junior high school," he remarked.

Adi further highlighted the increasingly dire circumstances
the country was facing.

He noted a drastic increase in the number of people living
below the poverty line.

He said the number had swelled from 17 million to 25 million
within a year.

During yesterday's cabinet meeting President B.J. Habibie
ordered Minister of Health Anfasa Moeloek to speed up efforts to
import as many medicine raw materials as possible to force down
the prices of pharmaceuticals.

"The quality of the medicines and their expiry dates should
also closely be monitored," Yunus quoted Habibie as saying.

Adi said that the government's efforts to accelerate the
distribution of commodities through small cooperatives had shown
encouraging progress, especially regarding cooking oil.

"I received a report that the price has dropped from Rp 7,000
per liter to Rp 4,000," Adi said as he smilingly added "I do hope
that this report is accurate".

Adi, a former Soeharto critic, said the government had no
choice but to promote cooperatives and small businesses as more
than 90 percent the country's 202 million population depended on
this sector.

"Bank loans benefit less than one percent of the country's
population while 38.9 million small entrepreneurs are waiting in
vain," he noted. (prb)