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Economic
Crisis Keeps Children Out of School in Indonesia
By Kanis Dursin
Inter Press Service
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 JAKARTA,
Apr 4 (IPS) - The prolonged economic crisis and limited financing
have forced the Indonesian government to delay the completion
of its nine-year compulsory education programme for elementary
and junior high school children. |
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''Whether we like it or not, the realisation of the nine-year
mandatory education programme has to be delayed due to the
current economic crisis,'' says Indra Djati Sidi, director-general
of elementary and secondary education of the Ministry of National
Education.
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Under the programme, which was launched in 1994, children
between seven and 15 years old are required to get grade school
and junior high school education.
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In
practice, it means all graduates of elementary school education,
which was already mandatory, have to pursue their studies
in the three-year junior high school programme.
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Since the mandatory education programme was introduced, Sidi
says the number of children taking part in it continued to
rise to up to 70 percent of children between seven and 15
years old.
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Data issued by the Ministry of National Education show the
number of elementary and junior high school students went
up steadily since 1990 before it decreased slowly in 1998,
the second year of the economic crisis.
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The number of school children totalled 36.44 million in 1994,
consisting of 29.46 million elementary school pupils, and
6.98 million junior high school students. The figure shot
up to 39 million in 1997, comprising 29.27 million elementary
school children and 9.73 million junior high school children.
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However, due to the economic crisis the figure went down to
38.64 million children in 1998. The net enrollment rate for
both elementary and junior high schools also slumped because
of the financial crisis.
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The
enrollment rate for elementary school was recorded at 92.3
percent in 1990 and rose to 93.4 percent in 1994, 95 percent
in 1997, before it declined to 93.74 percent in 1998. For
junior high school, it was recorded at 39.24 percent in 1990
and shot up to 56.03 percent in 1997 but dipped to 53 percent
in 1998.
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''Since the economic crisis struck Indonesia, we have been
only maintaining the level of students participation in elementary
and junior high school programmes to prevent them from dropping
out of school,'' Sidi says.
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The economic crisis, which also crippled other Asian economies,
has effectively reduced both the government and private sectors'
ability either to send children to school or to keep school
education activities running.
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Latest data from Indonesia's Coordinating Ministry for People's
Welfare and Poverty Eradication show the number of people
living under the poverty line has almost doubled from 22 million
people in 1997 to 40 million in 1998.
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''The impact of the increasing number of poor people in the
country is that parents can no longer afford to send their
children to elementary and junior high schools,'' says Basri
Hasanuddin, coordinating minister for people's welfare and
poverty eradication.
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The number of school children coming from poor families accounted
for 7.5 million during the 1998/99 fiscal year. Some 3.5 million
of them were recipients of the government's social safety
net programme, and another one million received scholarship
from the so-called Foster Parents Movement.
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The remaining three million were forced to drop out of their
schools or did not go to school at all due to a severe lack
of financing. The dropout rate in both elementary and junior
high schools has increased to six percent from the pre-crisis
average of two percent.
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Sidi says the basic assumption when the mandatory programme
was launched was that Indonesia would continue to book economic
growth of six to seven percent annually, and that budget allocation
for education would remain high.
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''Now we have an economic growth of one to two percent and
budget allocation for education has decreased as a whole.
So we cannot run at a high speed as planned in 1994. The consequence
is we have to delay the completion of the compulsory education
program,'' he says.
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The government allocated over 12 trillion rupiahs (1.8 billion
US dollars) for education programmes in budget year 2000-01beginning
from April 1, down from around 16 trillion rupiahs (2.1billion
US dollars) in the 1999/2000 budget.
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''This will affect the quality of Indonesia's human resources,
but financially we are limited. So we don't have many options,''
Sidi says.
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Some of the Education Ministry's projects that were geared
toward the completion of the mandatory education such as construction
of school buildings was suspended. The budget for the construction
of school buildings was re-channelled for social safety net
programmes, particularly for the scholarship of students and
the schools' operational assistance funds.
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''The philosophy of social safety net programmes is to maintain
children's participation and quality of the education to at
least its pre-crisis status. That situation has been going
on for three years now,'' Sidi says.
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Sidi says the Ministry of National Education will maintain
the social safety net programmes until Indonesia's economy
fully recovers to prevent further deterioration of the quality
of education. The government, he says, plans to assess next
month the time it needs to complete the programme.
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''But even after Indonesia's economy recovers, we cannot move
very fast. It takes time. It may take three or more years,''
he says.
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To help the government in financing the education of school
children, the Ministry of Education is encouraging more participation
of the community and the private sector in the country's education
program. Two private foundations, Supersemar and Orbit Foundations,
have granted scholarship to more than one million pupils during
the crisis.
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Djauzak Ahmad, an education expert who was the director for
elementary education when the nine-year compulsory education
policy was adopted in 1994, warns that the delay of the completion
of the programme would severely affect the quality of the
country's human resources.
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''When the programme was launched, Indonesia was not yet ready
for the nine-year compulsory education programme because at
that time up to 20 percent of the total school-age children
were unable to go to elementary schools.'' ''If Indonesia wants
to improve the quality of its human resources, it has to ensure
first that all school-age children undergo the six-year elementary
education,'' Ahmad says. |
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This article
is free of copyright restrictions and can be reproduced provided
that Inter Press Service is credited. |
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