Lampung schools still charging poor fees

Lampung schools still charging poor fees

Oyos Saroso H.N., The Jakarta Post, Bandarlampung

Construction worker Suparjan was surprised when his eldest son
asked him for Rp 100,000 (US$10) to pay his tuition fees at
Bandarlampung State Junior High School Number 2.

He said that he thought the school had recently received funds from
the government's School Operations Assistance Scheme, which
started to distributed money to schools across the country this
year to ease the burden on the poor in educating their children.

"But I had to pay the tuition fees even though it meant
borrowing the money from a relative. If I didn't pay, I'm afraid
my son would not be able to go to school as all of his friends
have already paid," said Suparjan, not his real name.

The Jakarta Post has discovered that the junior high school's
budget for 2005-2006 has increased from Rp 300 million the
previous year to Rp 1 billion, as a result of which the school
claims it still has to charge fees.

Ostensibly increasing a school's budget is a common strategy
used by school to keep imposing various fees on students even
though assistance has been received from the assistance scheme.

Apart from Bandarlampung Junior High No. 2, other schools that
have received assistance money but are still charging tuition
fees include Gajahmada junior high and Al Azhar elementary and
junior high schools in Bandarlampung.

Junior High No. 2's principal, Sartono, said that the school
only received assistance amounting to Rp 224 million for 700
students while it cost Rp 1 billion to run the school.

"The shortfall of Rp 775 million has to be collected from the
parents. That's why we need their participation so as to ensure
that the school's programs can continue," Sartono said.

Al Azhar junior high school deputy principal Sutrisno said the
school had collected tuition fees from the students of poor
families as it had yet to finish its list of students from
disadvantaged backgrounds.

At the moment, all students, whether from well-off or
disadvantaged backgrounds, had to pay tuition fees, he added.

"We're still processing the data on students from poor
backgrounds. That's why we still can't use the assistance
payments to relieve such students of the obligation to pay
tuition fees," he said.

On average, Sutrisno said that around 70 of the school's 664
students were from disadvantaged backgrounds. However, the
assistance payment of Rp 215 million received by the school would
not be enough to exempt all 70 students from paying fees, he
said.

The school currently subsidized tuition fee of all students.
For instance, a first year student had Rp 10,000 cut from the Rp
75,000 monthly tuition fee, while Rp 9,000 was cut from second
and third year fees of Rp 55,000.

He said the assistance payment of Rp 215 million, of which 25
percent had been allotted for buying books, was not enough to pay
for the school's operations, which would cost Rp 650 million in
2005-2006.

The fact that students from poor backgrounds are still being
required to pay tuition fees has been criticized by the director
of Bandarlampung's Municipal Education and Library Service, Zaini
Nurman.

He said with the paying out of the assistance, all students
from poor families should be exempted from paying school fees.

"We've asked all the schools to provide data on their budgets
for last year and this year. We've also asked them to provide the
details of how the assistance is used to find out whether the
school has effectively used the money or simply raised its
budget, and is still burden students from poor families with
various fees," Zaini said.

Chairman of Lampung province's School Operational Assistance
Monitoring Team, Nazarudin Tugakratu, said there's no excuse for
school to charged tuition fees to underprivileged students.

"A school that receives the money from the assistance fund
should prioritize students from poor families and stop charging
them tuition fees," he said.

The deputy director of Lampung's provincial education agency,
Adeham, said he would immediately deploy inspectors to monitor
the use of the assistance money.

"We receive many reports regarding the assistance scheme, so
we'll assign monitors to check out the schools," Adeham said,
adding that the inspectors' findings would determine the
sanctions to be imposed on violating the rules of the scheme.

The sanctions, he added, could range from administrative
sanctions to exclusion from the assistance scheme.

Meanwhile, the secretary of the Teachers' Dignity Forum in
Lampung, Gino Vanollie, said the increasing of school budgets was
a common ruse employed by school principals involved in
corruption.

He said most of the schools receiving the assistance in
Lampung had raised their budgets by up to 150 percent.

He said that the paying of grants worth Rp 235,000 per student
per year for an elementary school student was resulting in the
schools being "overwhelmed" with money.

"If a school has 200 students, and many have more students,
think how much money it will get. Previously, most schools only
managed tens of millions of rupiah, but with the money they are
getting now, what will happen next?" Gino asked.