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.