ICW says schools drowning in corruption

ICW says schools drowning in corruption

Tony Hotland, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Tarnishing their much-vaunted label as educational institutions,
schools are widely prone to corruption practices through unclear
school budgets and the lack of supervision by parents, a study by
Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) says.

The research, conducted from August 2003 to February 2004
among parents and teachers from 50 elementary schools in Jakarta,
revealed that the implementation of the school-based management
policy had not met its initial purpose of involving the community
in developing schools.

"There are several factors that contribute to the failure of
the policy such as the public's low awareness of it, the top-down
approach, and non-transparent reports by the schools," Ade Irawan
of ICW said on Wednesday during a seminar organized to evaluate
the school-based management policy.

Initiated in 2000, the policy was aimed at encouraging the
community to supervise schools, especially in terms of the use of
funds, through the creation of school committees, and by
gathering ideas to improve the institutions.

ICW found that only 21.6 percent of parents interviewed
claimed to have any idea about the committees, let alone the
policy as a whole.

"The scant knowledge of the policy means the community is
unaware of it, simply leaving all matters to schools to handle.
The government must take more actions to familiarize the parents
with the policy," he said.

The coordinator of ICW, Teten Masduki, said the public should
share the blame for not giving adequate attention to educational
issues and for relying heavily on the government.

"The public considers that the provision of education is the
government's problem. This makes it harder to expect active
participation from the people," Teten told The Jakarta Post.

Ade said corruption cases in schools could be easily seen from
the numerous fees imposed on students, such as fees for
evaluation reports, book rental, extra-curricular activities, and
annual building projects.

"Schools barely reveal their budget components, including
government subsidies, while parents never bother to ask for an
explanation.

"Almost 50 percent of our respondents said that they were not
informed about how the schools formulate those fees, let alone
the reports on their use," asserted Ade.

A deputy chairman of the House of Representatives Commission
VI, which oversees religion, education, culture, and tourism,
Heri Akhmadi, said that one of the problems faced was a fear of
loss of authority.

"In regions, headmasters or heads of education agencies fear
that such a policy will remove their authority. It's wrong, so
officials should be open-minded," he told the same seminar.

ICW has been collecting evidence about possible corruption
cases in schools.

"We're trying to set up a legal team to deal with this issue,
and we plan to report the cases to the police," Ade said.