Poverty bars children from school

PURWAKARTA, West Java: Half of the elementary school graduates in Purwakarta regency, West Java, are unable to go on to junior high school because their parents cannot afford the school fees, according to an educator.

The chairman of the local branch of the Association of Indonesian Teachers, Dedi Effendi, said on Tuesday about 7,000 of the 14,000 elementary graduates in the regency could not continue their educations because their parents could not afford the school fees.

According to reports, a new student at a state-run junior high school must pay Rp 700,000 (US$77.40) for school uniforms, shoes, school maintenance fees and other expenses.

"People in the lower-income bracket like us must accept the fact that our children must be content with an elementary school education. It is already difficult for us to meet our daily needs, let alone to pay hundreds of thousands of rupiah for school fees," Sukardi, a local resident, said.

He and other parents in Plered village, well-known as a manufacturing center for roof tiles, have been forced to let their school-aged children work to augment the family's income. --Antara