The system prioritizes those who live in the same district as the school. Those who have registered their children at a school in a different district can only cross their fingers and hope that their children will be permitted to enrol in their preferred school.
udji Martudji, 53, and his wife have gathered together jewelry, a house ownership certificate and other possessions as they prepare to send their first born to high school.
The family in Tanggulangin district, Sidoarjo, East Java, only has two options: enrolling their son in a private school, which is expensive, or applying to good state schools in other districts, which carries the risk that their child will be rejected because of the zoning system.
There are no state schools in their district. The zoning system, in which schools are required to give priority to students who live in the same district, has frustrated parents who live far from good state schools — or any state schools at all.
“The zoning system excludes my son from state schools because there are no state schools in our district,” Tudji said on Wednesday on the sidelines of a rally organized by parents to protest against the zoning system in Surabaya.
Tudji said the distance between his home and the nearest state school was more than 3 kilometers, adding that the system prioritized those who lived nearer to the school.
“I’ve decided to enrol my son in an expensive private school,” he said. However, he maintained the system had to be changed.
Aiming to improve the quality of all schools, the government has implemented a zoning system nationwide for the past two years.
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