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)