Oyos Saroso H.N., Bandarlampung – As many as 393,952 people in Lampung, or 8.5 percent of the population over the age of 15, cannot read or write, recent data from the province indicates.
The figure was based on research conducted in Lampung's five regencies with the highest rates of illiteracy, but did not include Bandarlampung city and Way Kanan and North Lampung regencies, which could possibly take the number of illiterate people in the province to 450,000.
Head of the Lampung Education Office, Hermansyah Singagerda, said that there were six regencies in Lampung where illiteracy was prevalent – East Lampung (79,633 people), South Lampung (77,482), Central Lampung (62,045), Tulangbawang (53,504), Tanggamus (46,566) and Metro (6,725).
According to Hermansyah, the illiteracy rate correlates with the poverty level in Lampung.
In its campaign to eradicate illiteracy in Lampung, the provincial education office has established the Education Priority Program and is setting up basic literacy groups in the regencies.
Besides illiteracy, the number of early school leavers and students likely to drop out of school in Lampung is also high. A total of 3,337 students failed to complete high school in 2005, and the figure is projected to rise in 2006.
Data from the Lampung provincial administration shows that there are 124,600 poor students studying in elementary, junior and senior high schools, while according to the education office the number is much higher, at around 226,000.
"Although scholarships are being offered to poor students, the school drop out rate is still high because their parents are uninformed of such opportunities. We have even predicted that the drop out rate this year will be higher than last year's," said chairman of the Indonesian Teachers Prosperity Forum (FMGI), Gino Vanolie.
According to Gino, a grant allocated from the provincial budget of Rp 20 billion (US$2.1 million) for school scholarships, in addition to fuel subsidy compensation funds reaching tens of billions, are more than enough to save the thousands of students who are in danger of leaving school before completing their studies.
However, Gino said that the contradicting data on the number of potential early leavers had deprived needy students of the scholarships, while students from more affluent families had been advantaged by the discrepancies in the data.
"We are not yet sure of the exact number of elementary school students who are likely to discontinue their studies. Circumstances like this are prone to irregularities," said Gino.
Gino expressed concern that available grants allocated for needy students could not prevent them from dropping out of school.
"With funds of Rp 30 billion per year, it would be inconceivable that there were still elementary school students who became street kids and scavengers," said Gino.
Apathy and negligence on the part of education bureaucrats in obtaining exact data could lead to unfair scholarship distribution, he said.
Gino mentioned the findings of the People's Coalition on Education in Lampung in 2004, which alleged the misappropriation of retrieval scholarship funds amounting to Rp 4.62 billion.
The block grant from the central government was initially intended for 4,620 elementary school graduates who could not afford to continue their studies in junior high school, with each student to receive Rp 1 million.
However, since the Lampung Education Office had no exact data on eligible recipients, more privileged students received the scholarships instead.
In March this year, two former heads of the Lampung Education Office had been accused of misappropriating education funds. Both suspects were eventually acquitted by the Tanjungkarang district court. Three Lampung Education Office officials who were allegedly involved in misappropriation of retrieval scholarship funds amounting to Rp 4 billion are currently being tried at the Tanjungkarang district court.