Parents call for school inquest

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Fri, 04/25/2008 12:11 PM  |  City

Parents of students in two schools in Jakarta urged the National Police on Thursday to investigate allegations of corruption at the schools.

The schools are public elementary school SDN Percontohan IKIP in Rawamangun, East Jakarta, and public high school SMA 68 in Salemba, Central Jakarta,

The parents also expressed disappointment police had named them as suspects after the two schools filed a counterreport for libel.

The parents' group has accused the school management of misusing government funds for school operation and maintenance expenses.

"It is hard for parents to monitor expenditure because the school tends to exclude us from budget discussions. When they finally released the report, I found many strange things in it," said Alex Yusfar, whose child attends SMA 68.

Alex reported the case to the National Police in November 2007. The school reported him for libel to the Jakarta Police in February and he was named as a suspect.

"I don't understand this. The police have not even finished investigating our case," he said.

Since 2005, the central government has disbursed trillions of rupiah in education grants to offset the effects of fuel price increases.

The funding allowed schools across the country to exempt parents from paying school fees.

Fund disbursement guidelines require principals to plan and manage the funds along with other financial resources in school budgets. School budgets have to be transparent to parents and the local community.

In a survey conducted by Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW), about 78.4 percent of the 6,480 respondents, consisting of parents in 10 municipalities and regencies, said they did not know anything about the allocation because principals did not involve them in setting school budgets.

Okky Sofyan, whose child attends SDN Percontohan IKIP, said he had had a similar experience to that described by Alex.

He filed a complaint with school management, which always asked its new students to pay admission fees, but he did not file any reports with the police.

"However, I then became a suspect after the school reported me for libel to the East Jakarta police. They filed the report after they read my comments in a newspaper," Okky said.

"I just want justice. This is for the sake of Indonesian education."

ICW coordinator Danang Widoyoko said the police should investigate the case soon.

"The parents are victims, not suspects. The police should investigate it more seriously," he said. (trw)

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