Soeharto asks the poor to save for education

JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto urged poor families yesterday to save money to help finance their children's education.

Speaking on National Family Day, Soeharto said the government was doing everything in its power through the nine-year compulsory education scheme to ensure that every child would go to school, but families also had to play their part.

"I appeal to every family to join the Prosperous Family Savings Scheme to Finance Education," he said, referring to a savings program administered by state banks.

By joining the scheme, "the future education of your children will be guaranteed, and this country will have educated people," he said. "Children should pick up the habit of saving."

Soeharto was in Binjai, a North Sumatra town famous for rambutan, to celebrate the National Family Day.

He presented Satya Lencana Wirakarya awards to people for their contributions to improving family life.

Recipients included Mrs. Yogie S.M., the wife of the Minister of Home Affairs who heads the nation-wide Family Welfare Movement, and Mrs. Surjadi Soedirdja, the wife of the Jakarta governor who heads the movement's Jakarta branch. Tangerang Mayor Djakaria Mahmud also received an award.

Soeharto said that, despite development, many families were still trapped by poverty.

The government has launched the National Foster Parents Program to help children of poor families attend school, complementing the nine-year compulsory education program.

When the government extended compulsory schooling from six to nine years in 1994 there were concerns that it would be to expensive to implement.

Soeharto went on to tell farmers in Binjai that the virtues of hard work and perseverance were needed to achieve the nation's goal of a just and prosperous country. "We have to be patient. Not patience by waiting, but patience by working hard," he said.

Impatience could lead to untoward things, he said. "We could even suffer a setback."

Soeharto explained the details of several government programs to alleviate poverty.

They include a program administered by the Yayasan Dana Sejahtera foundation, which Soeharto chairs in a personal capacity. Under the program, each poor family may borrow up to Rp 320,000 ($133) as start up capital. "This money is enough to start a productive activity," he said.

The foundation has collected Rp 1 trillion in donations from the country's wealthiest individual and corporate taxpayers. A presidential decree issued last year compelled anyone with after- tax income of more than Rp 100 million to donate another 2 percent of their income to the fund.

By last March, Rp 239 billion of the fund had been distributed to nine million poor families.

Officially, 22.5 million people were estimated to be living below the poverty line at the end of 1996, down from 25.9 million in 1995. A family is categorized as living below the poverty line if its monthly income is less than Rp 38,246 ($16) in urban areas and less than Rp 27,413 in rural areas.

The government aims to completely eradicate poverty by 2004.

North Sumatra deputy governor Pieter Sibarani told the President that his province had successfully eradicated some poverty because people were opting for smaller families.

"We used to be believe that a family was prosperous when we had 17 sons and 18 daughters. But now we just want one genius son and one pretty daughter," Sibarani said invoking Soeharto's laughter. (06)