City demands higher budget allocation not reduction
Indah Setiawati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 12/29/2009 8:58 AM
The City Education Agency complained Monday that the City Council had allegedly axed significant allocations in the proposed 2010 city budget for education.
“I am afraid this reduction will affect school performance [because] the budget will be used to fund the procurement of some [state] school facilities,” the agency’s chief Taufik Yudi said.
Taufik said the city had proposed an allocation of Rp 900,000 (US$95) for a high-school student for next year, under the Education Operational Costs scheme (BOP). However, the agency received information that the final amount agreed upon by the council was less than proposed. He added that some allocations for five municipalities in the city would also vary considerably.
“Some high schools in one municipality will receive less than schools in other municipalities,” he said.
He did not detail the amount, but provided an example where a student in one municipality might receive Rp 61,000 while a student in another municipality would obtain Rp 65,000 a month.
Taufik said his agency had proposed to allocate Rp 720,000 for an elementary school student, Rp 1.32 million for a junior high school student and Rp 1.8 million for a vocational high school student in the 2010 city budget.
City Council Deputy Speaker Inggard Joshua denied Taufik’s claim, saying that the council had approved the budget allocation for the BOP as proposed by the adminis-tration. “We never cut the budget allocation for the BOP. There must be a mistake,” Inggard told The Jakarta Post, adding that students in all municipalities in the city should receive the same amount of assistance.
However, Inggard promised to follow up the complaint by checking the final draft of the 2010 city budget currently in the hands of the Home Ministry.
“If there is a mistake, the administration can include a correction in the revised budget halfway through next year,” Inggard said.
Students at state schools receive assistance from the city administration under the BOP scheme and from the central government under the School Operational Assistance scheme (BOS).
