Thousands flunk elementary grades

PALANGKARAYA, Central Kalimantan: More than 33,600 students in state and Islamic elementary schools will have to repeat the grade this year.

This is from 299,422 students studying at 814 elementary schools in the area, according to head of the Central Kalimantan office of the Ministry of Education and Culture Karno Suryatma.

Karno attributed the high number of failures to a lack of qualified teachers and the low economic level of the parents.

"Poor awareness of the purpose of education among parents has also exacerbated the situation," Karno was quoted as saying by Antara yesterday.

He said his office would gradually improve the quality of teachers and the education on offer.

"We will also help the students and parents through a foster parent program and other scholarship schemes," he said. "We want the number of pupils repeating their grade to gradually decrease in the coming years." (sur)