Watchdog to monitor ministry

JAKARTA: A group of students, teachers and education experts declared on Monday the establishment of the National Education Watch (NEW), which aims to probe irregularities at the Ministry of National Education and schools across the country.

The watchdog has developed a nationwide network linking several schools through volunteer students, teachers and others in the field of education to collect data on financial irregularities.

Besides obtaining this data, the watchdog is also to cooperate with the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) in exchanging information.

"We hope we can compile and process the data we collect and publish it monthly for the public's consumption," NEW spokesperson Sarasdewi said here on Monday.

The watchdog was formed in response to the high number of corruption cases, such as irregularities, collusion and nepotism in the disbursement of government funds.

Sarasdewi cited as example that in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, the government had promised to provide funds to build new schools in place of those that had been razed in the war, but so far no new schools had been built in the province. -- JP