Students carry on studies even without schools

Students carry on studies even without schools

Agus Maryono, The Jakarta Post, Banjarnegara, Central Java

Dozens of barefooted elementary school students attentively
listened to their teacher, Rusmiati. Only the students and the
teacher were not in a classroom, instead they were in a simple
house with not even a single tile covering the floor.

The students were forced to find alternative locations to
study after the Watuurip elementary school building in Bawang
district, Banjarnegara regency, collapsed. Authorities ruled that
the collapse was due to the wood frame of the building, which had
rotted.

The same also happened at the SDN III elementary school in
Punggelan district, Banjarnegara, where a number of students were
seriously injured when their school building collapsed. Since the
accident, the learning process has gone on in a temporary
shelter.

And these are only two of many examples of the poor state of
school buildings in Banjarnegara regency.

An official from the local administration, Rusmiati, said
hundreds of students in the regency were studying in private
houses because their school buildings were badly damaged or had
collapsed.

"What else can we do? Because the school building collapsed,
the students have to study somewhere else. Luckily, a home owner
allowed us to use his house, otherwise we wouldn't have known
what to do," Rusmiati said, adding that they had been using the
private house for over a year.

A teacher at the Punggelan elementary school, Mistar, 50, said
he took three injured students to the hospital after the school
building collapsed. He said the building had major cracks in it
for a long time, but was never repaired because of a lack of
funds.

"We submitted a request for building repairs to the local
administration but we never got a response," Mistar said.

The school system in Banjarnegara is facing complex problems.
Hundreds of elementary school buildings are in very bad condition
and badly in need of repair. On the other hand, thousands of
elementary school-age children fail to go to school because of
poverty.

The deputy regent of Banjarnegara, Hadi Supeno, acknowledged
there were numerous damaged elementary school buildings in the
area, with an estimated three to four buildings in danger of
collapsing each month.

Hadi said over 50 percent of the 722 elementary school
buildings in the regency were in need of repair.

"Some 400 buildings are damaged and 300 of them are seriously
damaged and need immediate repair," Hadi said.

According to him, hundreds of these school buildings have been
in a poor state since being built in the 1970s, because the local
administration was cheated by contractors who used substandard
materials to build the buildings.

A field survey, he said, showed that it would require some Rp
80 billion, or about Rp 200 million per building, to repair all
400 of the damaged school buildings.

"As our regional budget stands at only Rp 260 billion, it is
obviously beyond us, financially, to have all the damaged
buildings repaired," Hadi said.

Most of the Rp 260 billion budget, or some Rp 165 billion,
will be spent to pay administration employees, while Rp 58
billion has been set aside to finance development projects.

Only Rp 1.8 billion has been budgeted for the repair of
damaged elementary school buildings this year.

"You can imagine how difficult it is for us to overcome this
problem, because to repair all the damaged school buildings would
cost some Rp 80 billion," Hadi said.

To try and ensure that all of the necessary repair work is
completed, he said he would propose seeking financial assistance
from foreign donor institutions.

"Who knows, maybe we can get the money, or perhaps Bappenas
(the National Development Planning Board) still has some reserve
funds. We would be grateful if some of the funds were diverted to
us," said Hadi.

For the time being, the Rp 1.8. billion from the local budget
will be distributed to between 40 and 50 elementary schools in
the most need of repair, with each school receiving about Rp 40
million.

"The repair work will be left to the schools' principals and
the village chiefs concerned. Since we cannot give any more
money, local villagers are expected to lend a hand in the repair
work," Hadi said.

Hopefully, given the earlier experience with some contractors,
this time the money will not simply be entrusted to contractors
without closely monitoring their work.