It doesn't cost much .... 4

Education For All in Indonesia wouldn't cost much if there were the infrastructure to provide employment, but I do not intend to pursue that path in this thread. Nor is it my intention to laud the achievements of the Suharto era but one must note the great amount of resources - from the Government, private sources as well as from international donors - which, since 1990, have been devoted to invest in the development of the four program areas - early childhood development (ECD), primary education, literacy programs, and continuing education - through a coordinating scheme among the concerned agencies.

The school system includes a six-year primary school, a three-year junior secondary school, a three-year senior secondary school, and higher education in universities, teacher training colleges, and (vocational) academies.

Under the constitution, education must be nondiscriminatory, and six years of primary education are free and compulsory. Subsidies are being made available to offer free junior high school schooling. In practice, however, the supply of schools and teachers is inadequate to meet the needs of the fast-growing post primary school age group.

This situation is partly responsible for the growth in the private schools sector and national plus movement, as these schools are able to employ expatriate teachers to offset the teacher supply.

The national education budget was US$ 4.18 billion last year with 31.8 million children enrolled in primary schools and 18.6 million in secondary, mainly junior high - years 7, 8 and 9. Senior high school graduation is a requirement for those wishing to enter university.

It is probably important to note that in Indonesia the public school sector maintains dual vocational (SMK) and professional streaming (SMU). However, while the number of places in tertiary institutions remains inadequate and education is relatively expensive, only a small proportion of SMU students actually participate. This poses some major questions as to the relevence of a purely academic SMU curriculum and the efficiency of a dual system.

Schooling is not, of course, the same as education; it is the study environment. However, every country requires some commonality in its school system in order to promulgate its culture identity, be it founded on a secular or religious basis.

The current Law No. 20/2003 Concerning the National Education System offers the following:
- Education is defined as a planned effort to establish a study environment and education process so that the student may actively develop his/her own potential to gain the religious and spiritual level, self-consciousness, personality, intelligent, behaviour and creativity to him/herself, other citizens and for the nation.

The right to receive an education is a human right as defined in the United Nations Charter. Katarina Tomaševski, a Special Rapporteur on the right to education submitted a report to the UN Human Rights Commission in 2002 following a visit here at the invitation of the government.

She had this to say: An in-depth review of the nature and scope of Indonesia’s human rights obligations in education is necessary in view of the dual system of public and private, religious and secular education, the dichotomy of school fees being both outlawed and allowed, the vertical and horizontal division of responsibilities for financing education, and the dual scheme of civil service and "contract teachers". Moreover, the dichotomy of education as a free public service and as a traded service has exacerbated the confusion regarding Government’s human rights obligations in education.

I referred to the 'horizontal division' of financial responsibilities in my comment in It doesn't cost much .... 3 about the decentralisation of responsibilities to local administration. My central thesis, however, has now been reached - the dichotomy of education as a free public service and as a traded service.

The Chinese Education Foundation was founded on July 19, 1950. Its name was changed in 1967 as after more than 25 years of Independence, Indonesian's pride has grown more, such that nation building and character building needed to take a more concrete form. Also, from the content of the founding act, it was very noticeable that the old foundation's Chinese ethnic based on Christianity has changed into Indonesian Nationality based on equal beliefs or religion.

So Yayasan Badan Pendidikan Kristen (BPK) Djawa Barat (Foundation of Christian Board of Education of West Java) was formed with the head office in Jakarta. However, soon another name change was required and registered in 1989.

In the improved social-economic condition and communicational ability, BPK Jabar has made several expansions up to the Lampung area. So a couple of schools under BPK Jabar was built in Bandar Lampung and Metro. With Jakarta no longer a part of West Java and Lampung as a province clearly outside Java, separated by the Sunda Canal, so it has been considered to change the name of Education Foundation in West Java with another - the name of Christian Education Foundation Penabur (BPK Penabur).

And this is the English translation they provide of their prologue: Remembering that Indonesian Christian Church which lives in alliance with the Holy Church in undertaking the call of servitude and testimony is in educational region, so that the Indonesian Christian Church in West Java has founded and nurtured a Christian Education Foundation based on the Christian Faith, in accordance to the awareness that education has the purpose of forming a complete humane. It was also stated that such foundation was situated in Jakarta and based on Pancasila and has the purpose of participating in forming a complete Indonesian humane through the region of education as the realization of the call of servitude and Christian testimony.

I have done my best to cross check this with the version in Indonesian and, yes, 'servitude' is what is meant, even though my too-big-to-tote Websters defines the word thus: the condition of a slave, serf, or the like; subjection to a master, bondage or slavery. The antonym is 'freedom'.

So, where does this fit in with the stated aims of the Indonesian education system, to enable students to actively develop his/her own potential? Where does 'creativity' fit in?

Penabur is perceived to be failing its students, mainly because it fails to meet the needs of the "essential ingredient for any school", its teaching staff.