Teenagers trained to be critical in making purchases

JAKARTA (JP): A warning for manufacturers: do not cheat the consumers with misleading labels. And for retailers, do not sell products after the use-by date.

Consumers, always in a weak position and victims of retailers' delinquencies, are no longer unrepresented. Those who will raise their voices and demand their rights are not necessarily lawyers. Teenagers will now do that.

Prior making purchases, they will check whether the information on the products' labels are in accordance with the facts, like counting the number of pages and quality of their writing books, the length of time a ballpoint lasts and examining the use-by date of certain snacks.

In brief, they are now critical consumers, thanks to a course on consumer awareness held by the Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) under the program, Training for Critical Teenagers.

The foundation has conducted the courses three times this year. So far, five students from each of eight senior high schools in Jakarta have attended the courses which will continue until 2002.

Just listen to their experiences shared with The Jakarta Post during a recent Discussion on Presentation and Evaluation of Teenager Consumer Training.

"Before, I never paid attention to the expiration date when I bought certain food products, but now I am more critical," said Puri, student of Muhammadiyah senior high school at Pejompongan area in Central Jakarta.

Puri was explaining about her recent experience of finding expired instant milk at a supermarket in Kemang, South Jakarta.

"I tried to find some others, but they all had the same condition, I then complained to the supermarket employees and they promised to withdraw all the products," she said.

The students are also critical of snack vendors around their school yards.

Husnul, from SMU Perguruan Rakyat II high school in East Jakarta, said that she learned that beverage sellers near her school charged students too much for the drinks.

"For example, Aqua mineral water in a 600 milliliter bottle, is sold between Rp 1,500 and Rp 2,000, but we know that the basic price from the producer is just Rp 800," she said.

Her friend Indri, from the same school, said she considers several things before buying certain snacks. She thinks snacks like potato chips, corn flakes and others wrapped in puffed-up packages are deceitful.

"Those are relatively expensive students, with big packages and little content," said Indri.

The students are also critical of their own schools and will openly question any ambiguous policy.

Puri said that she once questioned a policy by a teacher who collected Rp 75,000 from the students for a certain activity in her school. "I asked for clarification, there should be details of the allocation. I face the consequences of being critical because the teacher doesn't like me now," she said, adding that the matter is still being considered.

Unfortunately, there are only a few critical students in the country. The students share with each other how difficult it is to disseminate the awareness among their school mates.

"Many of our friends are sometimes unwilling to be more critical as they consider it of no use," said Silvia, student of SMKN 45 in West Jakarta.

But Zumrotin K. Susilo, former chairwoman of YLKI, said that such difficulties are normal "I have been fighting for consumer's rights since 1973. It is really difficult to build awareness," she said during the discussion.

She added that teenagers are easy prey to advertising. "Teenagers have the tendency to buy certain things based on desire not on need. From that point of view, consumer education is needed," she said.

Research

Prehati, from YLKI's education department, said that during the training the students were advised on producer's and consumer's rights and obligations, the way to read product labels, to be critical of commercials, the procedures for voicing complaints and so on.

They were also assigned to conduct research on consumerism among students. "We didn't dictate to them what to do. It was up to them to consider topics for the research," said Prehati, showing some of the works of the students in the form of papers and montages.

The topics for their research included smoking habits among students, the use of hair coloring, consumption trends among students while another school held a seminar on drug abuse.

There are many interesting aspects in the results of the research, for example that conducted by students of SMUN 35 in Central Jakarta with the topic "Consumption Trends among Teenagers" with 100 students as respondents.

It shows that almost half of their pocket money is spent for food or hanging around at malls or restaurants, the places visited by the students about twice a week. Only about 27 percent of the students preferred to save the money.

The same topic researched by students of SMK 28 Oktober 1928 II high school showed that most of the pocket money was used to buy school apparatus, VCDs or cassettes, accessories or cosmetics.

The research about the use of hair coloring among students showed that the students do so for the sake of trend even though they know there are side effects for their hair.

Students of SMKN 45 in West Jakarta conducted research on smoking among 50 student respondents, and found that half of them started the habit in junior high school, while 24 percent of them started in elementary school.

Most of the respondents are social smokers, and they mostly smoke without parental knowledge. (ida)