Hunting for the right, affordable school

By Ati Nurbaiti

JAKARTA (JP): When my daughter was in her first year at elementary school, she sometimes asked, "Why do I have to go to school every day?" after which she would decide to give herself a holiday. Why indeed, I wondered, when six to seven-year-olds were expected to sit nice and quiet in a class void of visual stimulation from morning till noon.

Despite being given frequent coaching from her parents, my daughter's school days conformed to the average standards of schools in what might be called the lower middle-class category -- where you are required to learn such things as what behavior conforms to what point of the Pancasila ideology.

Now my girl is almost 12 and the time has come to spend June mornings scouring junior high schools picking up entry forms. Her mother (myself) is earnestly hoping for an affordable school that is a little above the dull norm.

I also have a couple of other requirements; that the school is not in a tawuran (school battle) zone, the school is not too far away, as a greater distance exposes your child to the risk of drivers of public buses, minibuses who refuse to pick up youngsters in uniform because students are entitled to pay much less or because students attract their stone-throwing and weapon- wielding adversaries.

One would also like to take comfort in knowing that schools, apart from being obsessed in maintaining their "ranking" in competition with others, are at least a bit interested in having students understand all that stuff they would otherwise just memorize. Are the laboratories really used?

After a small-scale survey the options turned out to be schools charging up to Rp 8 million -- the "middle cost" levels in the range of "general" private schools (meaning for all religions) and the Islamic, Christian and Catholic schools, as well as the cheaper public schools.

After failing to enter two selected "general" schools I journeyed to one of the Islamic schools in the nearby suburbs. "Why," I asked the friendly staffer, "after some 10 years since being established, haven't you applied for cross subsidies like Catholic schools?" "Please ma'am", the man mumbled, "I'm only taking care of the administration".

Parents might be able to come up with all that money, but it was not clear to us what advantages the schools had over cheaper schools that had more or less similar drawbacks under the much criticized national curriculum.

Maybe it's the aspiring pious parents helping to keep prices up at the top Islamic schools that has led to the "take it or leave it" attitude.

Anyway my daughter was thoroughly ungrateful for this effort and blurted, "I told you I don't want to go to an Islamic school." Perhaps she has seen enough of her big sister's lengthy list of studies that includes five religious subjects alone.

And so we began to look for Christian or Catholic schools -- one of them has reportedly employed a new "fun" way of teaching -- where religious subjects are not compulsory. But -- lo and behold -- there are none. "How come", I asked the man at the other end of the phone, "attending the subject on religion wasn't compulsory for non-Catholics when I was a student here?"

"When was that Ibu? It's always been like this." That reply could only have come from a young impertinent employee or an ancient inquirer. We've known for a long time that the subject of ethics in the curriculum has been replaced by religion but it's only with this school searching that one realizes the apparent implication -- that while small schools outside the city must provide teachers of various religions to ensure they maintain enough students, favorite schools can afford to have only teachers of their respective religions.

Thus you get to sign a statement with a Rp 6,000 meterai that you "sincerely" agree to have your child attend the subject on a religion that may be other than their own "because, Ibu, the student has to attend exam subjects on religion."

Now, of course, the fuss over religion is because I think that nowadays "good" schools are no longer limited to Christian or Catholic schools and yes, I would like to be a little more pious, though my daughter does not give a hoot.

I've now given up and am looking for any school that can give the girl some hearty reason to go to class every day other than that she has to. (Ati Nurbaiti)