Ulma Haryanto – Violence remains a part of the education system in some part of the country, the nongovernmental group Plan Indonesia said over the weekend.

Wulan, a student sponsored by the NGO in Rembang, Central Java, said teachers at her school regularly used violence against students.

"There's one teacher who often spits at the students," she said at an event in Semarang, Central Java, over the weekend to mark Plan International's 75th anniversary. "The principal has been asked to admonish him because that kind of treatment scares the kids and makes them lose confidence."

Wulan said she also once saw a teacher at her school drag a boy along the street and repeatedly hit him with a palm branch for skipping Friday noon prayers.

Nono Sumarsono, the Plan Indonesia program director, said that in many regions in the country, the use of violence against students was still enshrined in the local education system.

"In East Nusa Tenggara, for instance, there's this philosophy that 'at the end of the rattan cane, there's gold,'?" he said. "The idea being that if you educate children with violence you get gold [good results]."

In some regions, he said, teachers come to class each day brandishing a rattan or bamboo cane for hitting their students.

"We're trying to gently change people's mind-set so that they embrace the philosophy that 'at the end of compassion, there's gold,'?" Nono said. "Plan is fully committed to actively protecting children from violence and ensuring that their rights are upheld."

He added that Plan's advocacy focus this year would be on birth certificates, violence and education. "We chose these three themes because they're all interconnected and have wide-ranging implications," he said.

Some 32 million Indonesian children do not have birth certificates and cannot enrol in school, according to 2007 government data.