Darmini, a 52-year-old mother who waited with hundreds of other parents at the subdistrict office in South Jakarta, said she had been there since 7 a.m. but six hours later, at 1 p.m., she was still waiting.

'€œThe deadline to submit the relief letter to the school is this afternoon. I do not know whether I can make it or not,'€ she said.

Parents blamed the schools for the tight deadline, saying they had only been informed about the letter on Tuesday afternoon.

Schools are responsible for listing students from low-income families for KJP and verifying whether the students deserve the assistance.

After the verification is completed, the schools ask parents of KJP recipients to submit documentation, including the relief letter.

The parents, whose children attend various schools in the subdistrict, said the information on their eligibility had been trickling in since Monday. Some only received the information Tuesday afternoon.

The Education Agency had set Wednesday afternoon as the deadline for the schools to forward the students'€™ documentation.

This procedure is different from last year'€™s, when parents submitted relief letters when they were proposing to receive the assistance.

Darmini said she could not blame the subdistrict office for the long wait as hundreds of parents had suddenly received the information and all come at once.

Darmini, whose daughter is in eighth grade in a private junior high school, said she needed the money to cover school tuition.

'€œI have to pay Rp 200,000 [US$15.80] per month,'€ she said.

Each student from a low-income family will receive monthly funds of Rp 210,000 for elementary school, Rp 220,000 to Rp 250,000 for junior high school and Rp 400,000 to Rp 450,000 for senior high school and vocational school. Students in private schools receive more than students in public schools because public school students do not have to pay tuition fees. The funds are disbursed quarterly.

The agency has proposed Rp 2.2 trillion be allocated from the city budget for about 600,000 KJP recipients this year, much higher than last year'€™s Rp 1.4 trillion.

South Manggarai subdistrict head Rachmat Mulyadi said his officers were overwhelmed with the relief letters requests.

'€œOur PTSP [One-Stop Integrated Service] is manned only by one person, meanwhile we have received more than 600 requests since Monday,'€ he said.

Rachmat said their PTSP only had two computers. '€œI have deployed my Public Order officers [Satpol PP] and contract workers to help the PTSP officer,'€ he said.

Education Agency head Arie Budhiman said the schools should have been prepared as the KJP had been in use for two years.

'€œThey should have been more active collecting the data of low-income families,'€ he said.

Arie said as of Wednesday, his office had only received 117,810 proposals, far lower than the expected 600,000 students.

The agency has decided to postpone the deadline to Jan. 20.

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