School dropouts on the rise in Yogyakarta due to poverty

Slamet Susanto, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta

Despite being known as a university city, Yogyakarta has seen an increase in the number of school dropouts, with an average of 500 elementary school students forced to quit school due to poverty.

A similar situation was observed in high schools in the province. In the 2002-2003 academic year, at least 404 junior high and 382 senior high school students had to abandon their studies.

The number of dropouts in vocational schools was even higher, reaching 934 students.

"After investigating the case, we find out that the biggest contributing factor in the number of dropouts was the economic status of the parents," Yogyakarta education office head Suhadi said on Saturday.

Apart from the dropouts, he said, financial difficulties also caused at least 11,672 elementary school students to fail their exams and hence to discontinue their studies.

The students had to work to help their parents, Suhadi added.

"There are other contributing factors causing them to drop out of school, but the highest contributing factor is that their parents cannot afford to pay for their children's education," he said.

He said that the number of dropouts from junior and senior high schools during the 2003-2004 academic period was 404 and 382 respectively.

The number of junior high school students who did not go on to the next class was 352 students and 240 others from senior high schools, he added.

Suhadi said his office has created a scholarship program for poor students, so they would be able to continue their studies.

But unfortunately, the scholarship program could not be enjoyed by all students from poor families because of limited funds allocated for the project, he said.

Suhadi said the scholarships could only be extended to 1.7 percent of all elementary school students, 5 percent of junior high school students and 3.4 percent of senior high school students in Yogyakarta.

He said the local education office welcomed efforts by the Yogyakarta education council to raise funds for scholarship programs.

Meanwhile, Yogyakarta's Muhammadiyah junior high school principal Endra Widyarsono attributed the economic hardship on the part of parents to his school's budget deficit.

"This problem is quite normal because 90 percent of the parents have an income of less than Rp 600,000 (US$70.00) per month each," he said.

He explained that some of the parents work as laborers and pedicab drivers who do not pay much attention to their children's education.

Endra said that out of the 105 students at his school, only six had paid their school fees until March, adding that some of them had not paid their school fees for the last six months.