Illegal levies at schools

Illegal levies at schools

From Pelita

The holidays are finished and children are back in school resuming their activities. The children may find some enjoyment in their return to school, but for the parents there is no joy as there is no escape from the money collections of the schools.

Parents of newly registered junior or senior high school students face fees in the hundreds of thousands of rupiah, and in some cases, even the millions of rupiah. Furthermore, parents whose children have been promoted to higher grades are also subjected to various fees.

New pupils are obliged to pay an entrance fee, contributions to school facilities and many other illegal costs. Unfortunately, schools do not allow new pupils to make use of second hand textbooks once used by an older brother or sister. Instead they must buy new textbooks. It has become a public secret in Jakarta that the government high schools are considered to be "money oriented." So people cynically interpret SMP (junior high) to stand for Sebanyak-banyaknya Mencari Pungutan (collecting money as much as possible).

Please, Minister of Education and Culture, do something about this problem.

Muhammad RH

Jakarta