Secondary education remains ‘second priority’ for ministry

It was almost 5 p.m. as Tip Wahyuni, a 19-year-old worker employed by a contract cleaning service, finished her day and prepared to go home.

Carrying a broom, she cleaned trash and dust from the floor of a corner of Blok M underground bus terminal in South Jakarta, through which pass thousands of passengers every day.

This was not the type of work Wahyuni dreamed of doing when she was a sophomore at SMK Fatahillah vocational high school in Pejaten, South Jakarta.

However, economic hardship forced the secretarial studies student to drop out in June.

Wahyuni’s mother, who previously worked as a domestic helper, has been suffering from severe typhoid for months; her father is a seasonal laborer with a very low income.

“His income is barely enough to cover the basic needs of our family, so I have to work. We need more money to cure my mom,” she told The Jakarta Post.

The family could no longer pay for her education after her mother became sick. Wahyuni is one of thousands of students who cannot complete their secondary education.

According to the National Education Ministry, the crude school participation rate (APK) for secondary education was 69.9 percent.

“Many students cannot attain a higher level of education, either at senior high schools or vocational schools, since they are too costly,” National Education Minister Mohammad Nuh said.

The government will require all students to complete 12 years of education by 2012, meaning that every child will be obligated to complete secondary education, defined as high school or vocational school.

In a pioneering step, the government will allot school operational assistance (BOS) funds, typically aimed at elementary and junior high school students, to secondary school students and Islamic senior high school students.

The government intends to provide around 9 million secondary students each with Rp 200,000 (US$22.6) in BOS funds in 2012 for a total expenditure of Rp 1.8 trillion.

Secondary school students have greater financial needs than middle or elementary school students due their need for advanced learning materials.

Achmad Safari, the deputy principal of SMAN 70 state high school, said that auditory, visual and kinesthetic elements, as opposed to lectures, had a huge impact on engaging students in the learning process.

“We cannot neglect the presence of visual elements in today’s teaching and learning processes since it will be easier for us to help students to understand a subject if we use pictures or graphics,” he said.

Using technology such as LCD projectors in the classroom, however, is expensive.

The government has previously focused its resources on implementing a 9-year compulsory education program, a goal that it has not achieved, as the crude school participation rate for junior high school was 80 percent.

The government has allocated Rp 288 trillion for education in 2012, a Rp 22 trillion increase over Rp 266 trillion in last budget period.

Deputy National Education Minister Fasli Jalal said that the allocation was not enough to cover student educational expenses, despite comprising almost 20 percent of the state budget.

Most of the education budget would be used to cover non-discretionary and routine expenses, such as salaries for teachers and other employees, BOS expenditures, the education operational fund (BOP) and school repairs.

“More than 300,000 teachers have attended teacher certification programs this year. If more than 90 percent of them pass the certification exams, then we will have 250,000 certified teachers. It means we will have to pay incentives for certified teachers next year. We are allocating Rp 12.5 trillion for this,” Fasli said.

Additional BOP funds might be allocated to state middle schools if the government could free resources from other, less important programs, he said.

“I must apologize for being unable to have any breakthrough for secondary students until we find no more children aged nine years old who cannot afford basic education,” Fasli said.