T

he Yogyakarta provincial administration intends to allocate 70 to 80 percent of its special status fund to the arts and culture, Governor Hamengkubuwono X has said.

'€œWe need to improve the quality of our art workers because they receive little appreciation from the community,'€ he said during a talk with art workers after inaugurating the new Yogyakarta Cultural Agency building on Jl. Cendana on Tuesday.

Providing an example, Hamengkubuwono said the salaries of creative workers involved in the production of cultural products such as batik and kris were insufficient. Gamelan makers are also becoming rare.

Hamengkubuwono said that to allow the cultural agency to absorb more funds, its structure would be enlarged to have seven divisions from the current four.

With the implementation of Law No. 13/2012 on Yogyakarta'€™s special status, the Yogyakarta provincial administration will a receive special status fund of Rp 500 billion (US$45.28 million) per year from the central government. This year, however, the central government will only disburse Rp 231 billion.

With the special fund, Hamengkubuwono proposed a plan to establish a community college where learning and teaching could be conducted almost anywhere in Yogyakarta that there was an art center.

Creative art workers, who are graduates of senior high school or the equivalent, will have their skills honed during their studies at the community college. Upon completion, they will receive a Diploma 1 or a Diploma 2 associate degree.

'€œI have approached the Higher Education Directorate General to help establish the community college in Yogyakarta,'€ the governor said.

With the associate qualifications, the governor said art workers would be able to earn more money as their skills would be formally acknowledged.

He also said that some of the special status fund would be allocated to pay the salaries of dance teachers in villages. '€œI want every village and subdistrict to have its own gamelan.'€

To help break down the concept of the special status in the fields of the arts and culture, the governor appointed Sumandyo Hadi, a lecturer at the Indonesian Fine Arts Institute (ISI) in Yogyakarta, as a gubernatorial expert staffer on the arts and culture.

Separately, the Private University Coordinating Body'€™s (Kopertis) Yogyakarta coordinator, Bambang Supriyadi, said the community college could start teaching in the 2014/2015 academic year.

For this, he said, the provincial administration would set up a foundation to run the college, which would offer five study programs, namely on dance, handicrafts, theater, puppetry and karawitan (gamelan orchestra).