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.