Graft allegations leveled at top school

Graft allegations leveled at top school

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

In another blow to the already faltering national education
system, parents of students at the "exemplary" SD IKIP Jakarta
elementary school accused the headmaster and school board of
misusing an estimated Rp 464 million (US$50,933) of state budget
funds and examination fees since 2001.

Accompanied by members of the Indonesia Corruption Watch group
the parents demanded the Jakarta Elementary and Middle Education
Agency dismiss headmaster Sulastri and freeze the activities of
the school committee.

The parents said they had asked Sulastri and the school
committee, which Sulastri had appointed, for more budget
accountability but to no avail.

"The amount of the misused money could be larger because the
Jakarta administration had disbursed a Rp 15,000 subsidy for each
student's monthly fees in 2003 and Rp 20,000 this year (which was
never passed on to parents)," ICW investigator Ade Irawan said.

"The agency also confirmed half of the 480 students were
supposed to receive state scholarships, but none of the parents
knew about it."

The elementary school, located inside the Jakarta State
University complex, received a Rp 100 million annual subsidy from
the administration due to its status as an exemplary state
school. However, new students were still required to pay a Rp 7
million entrance fee and Rp 100,000 monthly tuition fees, an
amount much higher than other state schools.

Together with a coalition of non-governmental organizations,
the ICW had earlier found evidence of similar graft in many other
Jakarta schools. The probe found there were few monitoring and
accountability mechanisms to deal with school budgets, which were
often set up and sole-managed by headmasters and rubber-stamped
by partial school committees.

The alleged graft at SD IKIP was initially revealed by senior
teacher Isneti Dradjat, who had often reminded former headmaster
Moh. Djasim and Sulastri of the urgency for transparency and
budget accountability.

On Sept. 6, Sulastri demoted the whistle-blower to a clerical
position at the school's library, Ade said.

The decision was approved by education agency, despite the
fact it violated the 2003 Education Law and other regulations on
teacher's functions and rights.

"During the meeting, the agency officials acknowledged that
the school regularly gave the agency office at subdistrict level
'thank-you money'. It explains why the agency did not raise any
questions about Isneti's arbitrary moves," Ade said.

On Tuesday, the World Bank revealed collusion in the
procurement of school books since 2000 which involved 20 private
and state publishers plus 10 individuals.

The bank asked the Indonesian government to repay $10 million
of some $53 million it had disbursed for the Book and Reading
Development Project since 1995.