Country struggles to allot more money for schools

Lilian Budianto ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Fri, 05/02/2008 2:26 PM

Dian, a student at a state junior high school in East Jakarta, has spent her entire childhood studying in dilapidated classrooms.

She shares a narrow desk with a classmate and is used to studying with raindrops falling on her books during the wet season.

Like other needy students in Jakarta, Dian receives a scholarship called the BOS (School Operational Aid), so her mother, a domestic servant, does not have to pay tuition fees.

But every semester, her mother still has to shell out about two months' salary for textbooks.

Dian, whose father left the family several years ago, no longer complains about her situation. She has also given up hope of going on to high school.

Yet she should have been able to pursue her studies -- if the government had allocated 20 percent of the national budget for education, as mandated by the 1945 Constitution.

"Insya Allah (God willing)," she said, in response to this news.

However much Dian and many other students from poorer families might wish to go on to further education, this is little more than a daydream. Rather than reach the 20 percent target, the government has proposed to cut the 2008 education budget by 10 percent to counter the impact of soaring oil prices and the cost of fuel subsidies.

The government initially allocated Rp 49.7 trillion (US$5.3 billion) or 12 percent of the 2008 budget for education.

Earlier this year, the government was forced to revise the budget after the price of oil passed $100 per barrel. It has since hit the $115 mark.

To avoid a gaping national budget deficit, the Finance Ministry asked the ministries and other government institutions to cut their annual budgets by between 10 and 15 percent.

The House of Representatives and the government are still debating these proposals although the House plenary session on April 11 endorsed the revised 2008 state budget.

Education Minister Bambang Sudibyo said he would insist on a reduction of only 0.4 percent or the ministry would face problems implementing its 2008 programs.

"Our calculations indicate we can cut the budget by only 0.4 percent. I am fighting hard for this because I know the Finance Ministry can accommodate it," Bambang, a former finance minister, said.

Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) lawmaker Wayan Koster said he strongly disagreed with the government's proposal of 10 percent cuts for the Education Ministry.

Wayan, a member of House Commission X overseeing education, said the budget efficiency policy should exclude education because of the Constitutional mandate.

"With a 10 percent reduction, the Education Ministry will only have Rp 44.7 trillion or 9.6 percent of the 2008 national budget," he said.

Legislator Irwan Prayitno of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) said the budget reduction would be a big loss.

"Although the government is required by the Constitution and the 2003 education law to allocate 20 percent of the national budget for education, we are downsizing it even further," he said.

To anticipate a possible reduction, the Education Ministry is preparing to shave off 45 percent of its Rp 432 billion book scholarship for needy students.

Bambang said the budget reduction would not significantly affect his ministry's programs.

"We will focus on cutting the book budget because schools can now download textbooks from our website and photocopy them. This saves them money because they don't have to buy textbooks," he said.

The government issued a regulation in 2007 allowing the Education Ministry to buy the copyright to selected textbooks, upload them onto its website and make them available to the public to download and print for free.

The budget debate will probably continue to drag on this year following the controversial Constitutional Court decision amending Article 49 of the 2003 education law, ruling that teachers' salaries were to be included in the education budget.

Previously, the education budget was spent on facilities of direct benefit to students, such as books, libraries and school buildings. Teachers' salaries were allocated under civil servant expenditure.

Ade Irawan, of the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) public service monitoring department, said there would be no real increase in the education budget following the controversial court ruling.

With the inclusion of teachers' salaries, the education budget will reach 17 to 18 percent of the total, assuming teachers' salaries amount to Rp 32 trillion in 2008.

Assuming the education budget increases by 2 percent every year, the government will therefore fulfill the Constitutional mandate to allocate 20 percent of the state budget for education next year, thanks to the inclusion of teachers' salaries.

The Indonesian Teachers Association protested against the court ruling, saying it would harm the wider educational community.

Critics have gone so far as to suggest the judicial review that resulted in the controversial court ruling was part of a government scheme to fulfill the Constitutional mandate.

Bambang said the debate over the education budget had become politicized and had often departed from the necessary discussions about creating the best education system for the nation.

As debate over the education budget drags on, many students from poor families may wonder whether poverty will continue to deny them access to education.

Like Dian, they may just hope and pray.

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