The jacket story

It may sound frightening but it's true. It happened to my daughter last year when she was in her last year of junior high school. She attended a reputable private school, located in South Jakarta, in front of the statue in Pancoran.

As parents we know that sometimes there are lots of extra fees required, with or without special announcement from the school. And we are sometimes left with no choice but to pay the fees, especially when our children ask for the money at the last minute as they are leaving for school, claiming that it's the deadline.

So that morning she asked me for Rp 160,000 to pay for a school jacket, which she said was a must. I asked her to show me the notice from the school and she told me the notice would come later.

I kept asking for the notice and the answer was always the same. I also began to wonder what happened to the school jacket since it was only a few days before graduation.

On graduation day, with no further news of the jacket, I talked to her teacher about it and his answer was unsatisfactory, which led me to ask a woman in the administration. Her reply was almost as light as the first one I received, saying that it was not organized by the school but by one of the students.

She mentioned a name. From her answer I concluded that the school was not responsible for it, although informally they knew what was going on. She also admitted that there were other parents questioning it and the school had tried to talk to the boy but with no results.

I gathered there were four classes, with approximately 40 students each, which were organized to buy jackets. Imagine, 160 times Rp 160,000 would make Rp 25,600,000. Six months later now, the school has still not clarified what happened to the jackets.

ETIE S. DIRAPRADJA Jakarta