Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – More than 1.2 million children in North Sumatra are forced to drop out of school every year for financial reasons.
Director of the Children's Protection and Study Center, Ahmad Sofian, said Saturday that figure was determine following the latest survey of schools and village heads.
He said according to the survey, the seven regencies with the highest numbers of dropouts were: Nias, South Nias, North Tapanuli, Dairi, Langkat, Labuhan Batu and Asahan.
He blamed poverty for the high dropout rates in Nias, South Nias, North Tapanuli, Dairi and Langkat regencies. In the regencies of Labuhan Batu and Asahan, lots of children were leaving school to help their parents fish at sea, he said.
Ahmad said for many children of fishing families, dropping out of school was not an economic necessity, but more a result of tradition. He said parents in these communities regularly took their children to sea, leaving them unable to go to class.
"Many of the children who drop out of school are only elementary and junior high school students. Most of these students do not want to quit school but poverty and their parents' encouragement made them have to stop their education," Ahmad told The Jakarta Post.
He said in more urban areas like Medan and its outskirts, many school dropouts end up homeless and living and working on the street. "Currently, there are 4,525 street children across North Sumatra. Of that figure, some 2,000 of them are in Medan and its outskirts and many are school dropout."
Riska, 11, lives and works near the Pinang Baris bus terminal in Medan. She says she has been living on the streets for two years, earning money by washing the windows of cars stopped at traffic lights.
Riska said she dropped out of school in the fourth grade because her parents could not afford to pay the fees. "Honestly, I didn't want to become a street person. I wanted to stay in school. But my parents are poor so here I am." She said her father was a construction laborer and her mother earned money by taking in laundry.
Ahmad said to help reduce the number of school leavers in the province, the center would provide scholarships to students from poor families to cover all their school expenses.
He said the scholarships would be funded by donations. "We have already collected Rp 58 million in donations...," Ahmad said. He said the center has handed out Rp 55 million for 20 elementary school students and 30 junior high school students.