Scholarships urgently needed

Scholarships urgently needed

Remember Mulyono, the 18-year-old village boy from East Java
who labored his way through high school to end up winning a
bronze medal in this year's International Biology Olympiad in
Brisbane, Australia, in July? That distinction earned Mulyono a
free ticket to Bandung's prestigious Institute of Technology
(ITB). But academic recognition alone almost proved to be not
enough for the youngster to realize his dream of one day becoming
an eminent scholar or professional and thereby raising his
family's living standards.

The institute's Rp 45 million (US$ 4,891) admission fee and Rp
1.7 million in fees per semester -- not to mention the daily
expenses for food, board and transportation -- threatened to
prevent him from realizing his ambition.

A similar fate awaited Ni Komang Darmiasty, of Buleleng, Bali,
who also emerged a winner in last July's Brisbane Biology
Olympiad. Fortunately, the girl's parents were somewhat better
off than Mulyono's mother, who is a single parent. Her father is
employed in Singaraja as a public school teacher. Admittedly, not
all of the young high school achievers who have in recent years
represented Indonesia in international science competitions have
fared so badly.

As could be expected, a much better future awaits young
Septinus George Saa, of the province of Papua, whose gold medal
victory in the First Step to the Nobel Prize in Physics 2004
competition in Warsaw this year earned him a full scholarship
from the Sampoerna Foundation, which entitles him to further his
studies at any institute of higher learning of his choice.

Fortunately, for lower ranking bright achievers -- of whom
Mulyono and Darmiasty are just two among many -- help could be in
sight in the form of year-long scholarships, which the government
is considering offering, as of this year, for the best performing
high school students each school year. According to Ministry of
National Education Director General of Elementary and Secondary
Education Indra Djati Sidi, the government is currently in the
process of working out a formula for the criteria and the budget
for the program. This budget will cover the admission as well as
tuition fees and cost of living for the first year of study. The
students are further encouraged to seek scholarships on their own
to cover the expenses for the remaining years.

In all this, one aspect that is interesting to note is that
most of the country's top performing students who have gained
recognition in international competitions have, so far, come from
regions far removed from the centers of commerce and government.
Most have come from underprivileged families. But while this may
be reason enough to believe, or hope, that money and superior
facilities do not necessarily guarantee success in learning, it
also highlights a major problem that is facing educators in their
efforts to bring a greater degree of egalitarianism into
education in Indonesia: the high cost of learning.

This is especially true since the government granted full
autonomy to four of the country's most prestigious institutes of
higher learning: the University of Indonesia in Jakarta, Gajah
Mada University in Yogyakarta, the Bandung Institute of
Technology (ITB) in Bandung, and the Bogor Institute of
Agriculture (IPB) in Bogor, West Java.

Beginning this year, these institutes are charging anywhere
from Rp 5 million to Rp 45 million for new admissions, not
including the fees for each semester, amounts that are obviously
well beyond what most Indonesian families can afford to pay. A
way must therefore be found to subsidize the brightest among
those students who would otherwise be denied a proper education.

The importance of finding a way out cannot be overstated. For
a developing country such as Indonesia, the building of a pool of
capable human resources, and hence education, is the key to
sustainable development. Yani Bayani, who is a teacher at
Jakarta's prestigious SMU 8 senior high school, has an
interesting story to tell. Universities in neighboring countries,
she says, are regularly inviting the brightest among Indonesian
students to advance their studies in their countries. For
example, 10 of her former students are currently studying at
Singapore's Nanyang Institute of Technology. Others have received
scholarships from companies in Japan. Obviously, the possibility
exists that they will stay in their employ for years, if not
forever, thereby depriving Indonesia of a valuable reservoir of
competent human resources.

Sadly, Indonesia will not be able to provide enough money to
build, through education, its own pool of qualified human
resources for at least the next five years. Even with Rp 21.5
trillion set aside for education in next year's state budget,
that amount is far from the 20 percent mandated by the
Constitution. A way must therefore be found to mobilize every
available sector to take part in the efforts -- now.