School committees may be helping to steal fund

School committees may be helping to steal fund

Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) has found that school
committees, expected to help create a better atmosphere for
education in Indonesia, might be abetting irresponsible and
greedy principals in stealing education funds.

The discovery came from investigations into five schools: SMP
70 and SMP 250 state junior high schools and SD 03 state
elementary school in Jakarta and SMU 5 and SMU 1 state high
schools in Cimahi, West Java.

"There have been many irregularities in implementing the
policy such as selection of school committee members and drawing
up of the school budget (APBS)," said Ade Irawan, ICW program
manager in its public service monitoring division.

School committees, based on Ministerial Decree No. 044/U/2002,
are part of a school-based management program adopted from
overseas. It is meant to boost the involvement of the public in
school management and to supervise the use of school money.

Ade said that all committee members had been selected by the
principals themselves, so other academics at schools never really
knew about the capability or accountability of the members.

"They never involve teachers in budget planning," said Ade.

Some of the APBS money is derived from the government, foreign
foundations such as the Asian Development Bank and UNICEF, and
from parents.

ICW found out that fund usage was hard to control because the
education agencies had disbursed funds directly to principals,
instead of the school treasury. The committees failed to monitor
properly the flow of funds.

The investigation revealed that principals have unduly
influenced school policies, including financial ones.

"There is no control over fund usage," Ade said.

ICW said that the establishment of a school committee was not
a bad idea. "It is a matter of implementation; the government
must provide information to the public about what school
committees are and their role in the education process," he said.

ICW managed to assist Soebandrio, head of the school committee
of SMP 250 Jakarta, to file a report on alleged corruption by the
principal with the City Audit Agency (Bawasda).

The principal of SMP 250 could not explain the use of a total
of Rp 1.2 billion (US$141,176) from the school budget for the
2002/2003 fiscal year, of which Rp 780 million was derived from
the administration while the rest came from parental
contributions.

ICW said that Bawasda should take firm legal action against
any such alleged corruption. -- JP