Stop illegal fees in schools: Golkar

JAKARTA: The House of Representatives has called on schools to stop imposing illegal fees to admit new students because the practice had overburdened parents.

"Charging these illegal fees has been rampant during the registration of new students in private and state-run schools across the country. The fees must be phased out because they will certainly overburden the parents and obstruct the education program," Anwar Arifin, the chairman of the House's Commission VI for education and labor, said here on Wednesday.

Arifin also called on the government to disburse to education institutions the funds collected from the gradual phasing-out of the oil subsidy to help schools cope with financial problems.

He said his commission would support the government's plan to allocate 20 percent of the 2003 state budget for the education sector to provide more subsidies for schools and to help improve teachers' social welfare. -- Antara