Huge fund for education earmarked

BALIKPAPAN, East Kalimantan: The Balikpapan mayoral administration has earmarked at least 20 percent of its Rp 550 billion (US$68.75 million) 2004 budget toward education, as stipulated in the Constitution.

The fund is to be used for training teachers, constructing schools, paying salaries and other education-related purposes, said Ali Munsjir Hasyim, spokesman of the Balikpapan government.

Part of the fund will also be used toward renovating 20 of 160 elementary schools in the city.

The decision comes amid an ongoing furor in Kampar, Riau, where the educational community took to the streets over the regent's expulsion of a local principal who questioned the allocation of only 5 percent of the regental budget toward education. -- JP