Poverty bars children from school

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