Papua drops student fees, hikes teacher salaries

R.K. Nugroho, The Jakarta Post, Jayapura

With new powers under the special autonomy laws, the provincial legislature in Irian Jaya (Papua) has dropped all fees for elementary and high school students as of the 2002/2003 academic year to give children more of an opportunity to receive a quality education.

Jerry Haurissa, chief of the local education office, said financial issues had been one of the main problems preventing school-age children from attending school.

"With the new policy, all Papuan children aged between six and 18 are expected to go to school in attempt to improve the human resource quality in the province," he told The Jakarta Post here on Tuesday.

He admitted that various political and military conflicts had affected schools, by causing many teachers to return to their home provinces while many students chose to stay home.

"We will hire more and more teachers from other provinces with higher salaries and interesting incentives to encourage them to work in remote areas," he said.

Haurissa hailed the 2002 budget which gives a top priority to the education sector, saying the high budget was expected to be able to finance all development planning in the education sector.

"The provincial administration has allocated 30 percent, or more than Rp 183 billion, of the 2002 budget totaling Rp 1.9 trillion for the education sector," he said, saying that in addition to pushing for the nine-year development planning, that the local administration would also provide scholarships for Papuan people to study at home and overseas as well as to establish vocational training centers for high school graduates who decided not to go to university.

The province's budget endorsed by the provincial legislative council on April 24, 2002, increased by more than 300 percent to Rp 1.9 trillion this fiscal year from the previous Rp 618.5 billion in 2001.

Under the special autonomy, the province was able to retain some Rp 1.3 trillion, mostly from its profits from exploitation of natural resources, including the copper and gold mines controlled by PT Freeport Indonesia, in the province. Previously, Jakarta kept more than 80 percent of that revenue. Of the figure, the provincial administration now receives some 60 percent or Rp 760 billion while the remaining Rp 621.9 billion was distributed among the regency administrations. The province will also receive some Rp 600 billion from other sources such as taxes and the state budget to pay civil servants and servicemen employed in the province.

The chairman of the Papua provincial legislature, John Ibo, confirmed that the province would give a top priority to the education and health sectors in efforts to improve the quality of human resources.

"Besides the education sector, we've allocated Rp 91.5 billion, or 15 percent of the budget for the health sector while a total of Rp 152.6 billion is to be allocated to help develop the land transportation networks connecting all regencies and cities in the province, which is three times the size of Java Island," he said.

He added that 15 percent, or Rp 122 billion of the budget, was allocated to develop small- and medium-scale enterprises to strengthen the province's economy.

Four factions, including the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle and the National Mandate Party (PAN) had opposed the budget's draft but, later, accepted it after negotiations among the factions at the provincial legislature. The draft budget was prepared in line with the fiscal balanced budget law, but the special autonomy stipulated by Law. No 11/2000 has yet to be implemented fully.