Rp 26 trillion planned for poor students

The Education and Culture Ministry has apparently raised public expectations by saying that it plans to allocate Rp 3.9 trillion (US$425.1 million) to help more than six million poor students throughout the country in efforts to finish their education next year.

The ministry is reportedly planning to distribute the money directly to students at all education levels. It will also provide additional financial support for students through the School Operational Assistance (BOS) fund amounting to Rp 23.5 trillion, a 40 percent increase from 2011’s Rp 16.3 trillion.

“I hope the money can be of assistance for around 800,000 poor students who had already dropped out of their schools and helped another 740,000 students continue their education,” Education and Culture Minister Muhammad Nuh said on Friday.

According to the ministry, there are currently 1.18 million dropouts in the country and more than 2.33 million elementary school graduates who failed to finish their secondary education due to financial problems.

Nuh said that the ministry would maintain its support for students who currently receive scholarships from the government and reach out to poor students in the country so that they could find access to higher education.

“We will give priority to reaching out to all poor students throughout the country next year in order to provide education for all citizens, as mandated by the 1945 Constitution.”

The ministry also made promises that it would improve the BOS distribution next year because funds were allegedly proven ineffective in 2011, when much of the money had apparently been channeled to parents of wealthy students by corrupt bureaucrats and dishonest school administrators.

The ministry recorded that 258 regencies had not yet distributed the BOS funds to schools.

“We cannot allow such practices to occur again next year. We will make sure that all of the money will be distributed to schools,” Nuh said, adding that the ministry would channel more money to provincial governments in early January.

The government intends to begin implementing a new mechanism in the distribution of BOS funds starting next year by directly channeling money to provincial governments, which will later transfer the money to schools by bypassing regional governments.

By providing better access to education, the Ministry expects that Indonesia’s Human Development Index (HDI), which ranks 124th on the United Nations Development Program’s 2011 HDI report, will improve next year. It expects that the education factor, one of three indicators that has shaped the index, will improve. The overall health index and per capita income also make significant contributions to HDI figures.

The Minister also pledged that the ministry would provide equal treatment for all poor students; rural and urban.

“We must not worry about the term “reach out”, because it does not imply geographic distance. Reaching out also refers to social, economic and cultural distances among students,” said Minister Nuh.

As part of the reach-out program, the ministry has targeted establishing schools in border areas that apparently had long been neglected.

“We realize that developing schools in border areas is important because it relates to national unity,” Nuh told reporters earlier this week.

He said that each school would have a dormitory for students and housing for teachers because of the lack of transportation around border areas.

The schools will be located in West Kalimantan (Kapuas Hulu, Sintang, Sanggau, Bengkayang and Sambas regencies) and East Kalimantan (Nunukan, West Kutai and Malinau regencies), which have borders with Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam. (msa)