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ducation activists and parents in Lampung have urged the education minister to immediately review the policy on fee collection in schools. The issuance of Ministerial Decree No. 44/2012 in June is being seen as giving school principals the opportunity to demand illegal payments.

“The ministerial decree is very unusual and paradoxical, because in December last year, the minister issued Ministerial Decree No. 60/2011, which referred to a ban on school payments in elementary and junior high schools. Although the regulation has not yet been implemented by the schools, a new regulation has instead been issued, allowing the schools to collect fees,” Lampung Anti-corruption Committee (Koak) director Muhammad Yunus said on Monday.

According to Yunus, the new ministerial decree which allows schools to collect fees from parents is considered inconsistent, because the government has increased the amount of School Operational Assistance (BOS) funds for elementary and junior high schools in January this year, from Rp 397,000 (US$42.08) to Rp 580,000 per student per year (a 46.10 percent increase) for elementary schools and from Rp 570,000 to Rp 710,000 per student per year (a 24.56 percent increase) for junior high schools.

“The significant increase in the amount of BOS funds is aimed at meeting the minimum standard of services. Education and Culture Minister Muhammad Nuh emphasized in March that schools were not allowed to collect fees, as the government had increased the amount of BOS funds,” said Yunus. He added that the government so far lacked a benchmark on the amount of education costs required by each student annually, so school principals always claimed that the BOS funds were inadequate to implement education in schools, and they imposed donations on parents.

According to Yunus, despite a clause stating the donations are voluntary in nature, in reality, the donations are often imposed by the schools. “We found evidence that nearly all the state junior high schools in Bandar Lampung required parents to give donations of between Rp 750,000 and Rp 2 million per student per year. The accountability of the funds collected from the parents is usually unclear, and funding reports are being duplicated”, he said.

Indonesian Independent Teachers Federation (FGII) head Gino Vanolie said the BOS funds provided by the government were adequate to finance school operations. “The funds usually become inadequate because school principals are sometimes squanderers. The BOS funds are usually used for activities which do not support the education process in schools. Some of them even misuse the BOS funds,” said Gino, who is also the Education and Culture Office head in Way Kanan.

Bandar Lampung Education Office head Sukarna Wijaya said the amount needed by each elementary school student in Bandar Lampung was Rp 1.2 million annually, while junior high school students need Rp 1.5 million annually. “As the BOS funds deplete, it is usual for the schools to ask for cash donations from parents,” said Sukarna.

However, data from Lampung Koak showed that most of the state schools in Bandar Lampung manage funds which are far higher. Yunus said besides BOS funds, the schools derived funds from parents’ donations, the provincial, regency or mayoralty administrations, corporate social responsibility programs and Special Funds Allocation from the state budget.

“A study conducted on 10 schools in Bandar Lampung showed that if the funds are accumulated and allocated to each student, the operational costs of a student could reach Rp 3 million annually. Some schools even allocate Rp 5.4 million annually for each student, and this has been acknowledged by school principals,” said Yunus.

According to Yunus, duplicating reports is a form of corruption committed by school principals. “The dual reports, for example, are for funds to build new classrooms allocated from Special Allocation Funds from state budget, but they still ask for donations from parents,” said Yunus.