Parents demand lower admission fees

TANGERANG: Some 300 parents of high school students demonstrated on Wednesday in front of the Tangerang City Council, demanding transparency and lower fee in the admission process at state high schools SMUN 2 and SMUN 5.

Indriawati, the mother of a high school student, questioned the transparency of the admission process at SMUN 2, given that the school took less than 24 hours to admit 399 out of 1,400 test participants.

The 399 students were admitted to the high school without any details of their rankings in the admissions test, Indriawati, whose son failed the test, said.

One father, Ismatullah, was there to protest the high admission fee at SMUN 5, which is requiring the parents of 396 newly admitted students to pay a "development donation" of Rp 2 million (US$243.90) each.

The spokesman for the council's Commission E for people's welfare, Abbas Sunarya, said the commission would hold a hearing with the principals of both schools and the parents. -- JP