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.