Unacceptable school fee increase

Unacceptable school fee increase

Hundreds of thousands of high school students nationwide
failed their final exams this year. Does this mean young
Indonesians are less intelligent, less diligent than students in
Singapore? Not at all!

I have been supporting several young junior high school and
senior high school students here in Karangasem, which is still
one of the poorest parts of Bali, for some years so far.

Unfortunately it is not the exception to the rule that
teachers do not show up for their classes over weeks. Also it is
not the exception to the rule that -- after one semester --
students' notebooks show only three pages of school exercises in
mathematics, English, Indonesian, etc.

Only recently, the President talked about eliminating poverty
in Indonesia (millions of Indonesians struggle to survive on less
than US$1 per day).

A few weeks ago, the salaries of soldiers, police officers,
teachers and other groups of civil servants were increased --
even a "13th month" salary will be paid. This is highly welcome.
It certainly will reduce the proneness of those groups of public
employees to a serious illness -- corruption.

But I simply cannot understand why a school fee increase of
100 percent at SMA PGRI 1, Amlapura, Bali, was applied between
school year 2003/2004 (Rp 35,000/month) and 2005/2006 (Rp
70,000/month). This is a state, not private, school and I,
therefore, assume that such fees are collected nationwide.

I call this -- please, forgive my bluntness -- discrimination
against umpteen millions of highly intelligent young people whose
parents cannot afford these high fees.

MICHAEL BEER, Amlapura, Bali