Searching for the right school always a headache

By Hera Diani

JAKARTA (JP): This month, many parents find themselves in the quest for selecting schools for their children, which, as in war, needs a certain strategy.

Searching for a good school in a big city like Jakarta is not easy for most people. More often than not good scores do not make it easier to find the right school. Location is also important, beside the cost of schooling, of course.

In addition, parents must pay attention to the registration timing. The registration for state-run senior high schools closed on Friday. For junior high school, it will be held from Saturday to Monday.

Some private schools even opened registration for only one day, leaving many parents disappointed when they learned that the registration period was over.

"The registration is only conducted on one day, starting from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. and students must come with their parents. It doesn't make sense to me. What if their parents work? It's just like a military system," a parent named Joseph told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

It shows, Joseph added, how weak the position of students and their parents was.

For public schools, the Ministry of National Education imposes a district system, which divides the city into 16 districts spread throughout all five mayoralties.

Public schools in Central Jakarta are divided into three districts, schools in South Jakarta into four districts, North Jakarta has two districts, East Jakarta has four districts and West Jakarta has three districts.

Each mayoralty has one school as a school registration post, where parents from each school in different districts register their students, whether for junior high school or senior high school.

The school post then processes all of the incoming forms and sends the results to each school. The registration form costs Rp 4,000 (36 U.S. cents).

The registration is done collectively from schools where the students come from.

"Students who want to move to another district, in case they move house, for example, have to do the registration themselves," the head of a district in South Jakarta, Ida Hasidah Herman told the Post on Friday.

However, Ida said, many parents decide to send their children to another district to register with favorite schools.

"Sometimes they are not being logical. Although a student lives in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, the parents register their child at a school in South Jakarta," said Ida, who is also the principal of state-run Senior High School (SMUN) VI in Bulungan, South Jakarta.

Ida noted that every school reserved 10 percent of places for students from outside their districts in the Greater Jakarta area.

As for the entrance fee, the concept that public schooling is much cheaper than private is only a myth.

The fee for public schools is around Rp 2 million (US$181.8), while private schools start from Rp 2 million and Rp 3 million, to over Rp 6 million.

Heni (not her real name), wants to register her daughter at a private Islamic school.

"But the good ones cost some Rp 5 million to Rp 6 million. So, instead, I registered her at a Catholic school which cost me some Rp 3 million," she said, adding that she also registered her daughter at public schools.

Separately on Friday, Wardi Isman, principal of SMU Al-Azhar Islamic senior high school in Blok M, South Jakarta, said the high fee his school charged was commensurate with the facilities given.

"We don't collect additional fees, just the monthly tuition fee of Rp 175,000. We don't charge for extracurricular activities, laboratory and health services at all," he claimed.

Unfortunately, searching for a good school in Jakarta turned out to be a nightmare for some parents.

Joseph in West Jakarta said that he had been trapped in an ugly situation while looking for a school for his daughter who has just graduated from junior high school.

After surveying several schools, he registered his daughter at three schools, all of them privately owned.

But at one of the schools, which is located near Joseph's house in West Jakarta, he was forced to pay a non-refundable fee of Rp 2.3 million for uniforms and a registration fee.

"I was so mad. But if I didn't pay, I was afraid my daughter would not be accepted at other schools. So, now, she attends that school, although she preferred another one," Joseph said.