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