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.