F

rom the outside, the school building looks just fine but looks can be deceiving. One of the first things you notice after stepping into the school is a strong odor and water dripping into classrooms. With missing and broken roof tiles, the building leaks so badly that it is dangerous for people to run on slippery floors when it rains.

The two-story building on Jl. Utama Raya in West Cengkareng subdistrict, West Jakarta, houses three state elementary schools: SD 01 Pagi and SD 02 Petang, which take turns using the ground floor in the morning and afternoon, and SD 12 Pagi, which holds morning classes above. More than 600 children are enrolled in the three schools.

The Jakarta administration had earmarked the school for renovations, along with 86 other dilapidated schools in the capital. However, when the administration slashed its budget for 2020 last month, the West Cengkareng school was removed from the list, as were 29 others.

The Rp 2.1 trillion (US$ 150 million) for school renovation projects around the capital has been slashed to Rp 1.4 trillion as the city administration reviews its 2020 budget. The allocation for school repairs had increased in the last five years, reaching Rp 2.02 trillion in 2019.

“It’s been like this for two years,” said a teacher at West Cengkarang. “Now we only use two restrooms [out of four] that work,” she told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

Since being built in 1984, the school has never been renovated. Now the entire building shakes whenever a big truck passes.

Repairs will be prioritized if money is available, another teacher said.

Many schools in Jakarta do not have the most basic facilities, such as a proper roof or functioning toilet.

Besides West Cengkareng, two other schools in Jakarta categorized as “heavily damaged” have been removed from the list for renovations.

The other two are SD Tomang 03 in West Jakarta and a junior high school in East Jakarta, SMP 194.

The other 27 removed are categorized as “needing repairs”.  

In spite of their classification, the Jakarta Education Agency is confident renovations can wait until 2021.

“We made sure they were still safe,” the agency’s acting chief, Syaefulloh Hidayat, said as quoted by tempo.co.

SD Tomang 03 had not been informed about its removal from the renovation list but said it would relocate if no renovations took place next year.

“There might be other schools that are in worse condition,” principal Haryati said, adding she had no idea what criteria the administration used in selecting schools for renovation work. She said the school was prepared to move, even if that meant sharing a campus with another school.  

SD Tomang 03 was built in 1974 and has never gone through full-scale renovations. In 2016, three classes were repaired after the ceiling collapsed.

In May, floodwater toppled the fence at SD 04 Pagi Cibubur, East Jakarta. No casualties were reported since the school had been cleared for renovations.

In other regions, school accidents are also common. In November, five schools were damaged in East Java, Central Java and Banten. Among them was SD Gentong in Pasuruan, East Java, where an incident killed an 8-year-old student, a teacher and injured 12 students aged 7 to 11.

Most state schools were built during the Soeharto years under an initiative to accommodate all children. Now that school has become compulsory and free for 9 years, many of these Soeharto era schools are in state of disrepair on account of poor maintenance.

While former president Soeharto won international accolades for his efforts to provide an education for all children, critics say Indonesia falls behind many countries when it comes to school conditions.

The city’s decision to defer the renovation of 30 schools raises questions about its priorities.

Jhonny Simanjuntak, secretary of the Jakarta Council’s Commission E overseeing people’s welfare, said that even with a smaller budget in 2020, the school rehab program should be given priority.

He cited Jakarta’s plan to host the 2020 Formula E race in June and the construction of a luxury hotel in the Taman Ismail Marzuki arts and culture center as spending that could have been deferred.

“Providing safe and comfortable schools is a part of improving education quality,” Jhonny said. “We don’t want accidents to happen because of the budget cuts.” (aly)