Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – The government has confirmed the record high education budget next year will not mean free education for all, as the largest budget component will go to teachers' salaries and welfare.
National Education Ministry Director General for the Management of Basic and Secondary Education, Suyanto, told The Jakarta Post here Friday that huge funds would be available for the nine-year basic compulsory education program in 2009.
"But, the education budget is mushrooming because of teachers' salaries, which will be disbursed to regions in the form of general allocation funds. The Directorate General for the Management of Basic and Secondary Education, meanwhile, will only see a modest budget increase," he said.
Suyanto said his directorate general, which is dealing with the nine-year compulsory education program, would have its budget increased from Rp 19 trillion (approximately US$2.01 billion) this year to about Rp 27 trillion next year.
National Education Minister Bambang Sudibyo said last week the nine-year basic education program would account for nearly half of the 2009 education budget proposed by the government, which stood at Rp 224.44 trillion.
He added, however, that the biggest portion of the program's funds would be "to pay teachers' salaries and improve their welfare". About 80 percent of the country's 2.7 million teachers are employed in elementary and junior high schools.
Later, Bambang told a hearing of the House of Representatives' education commission on Wednesday that teachers and other educational staff salaries would amount to Rp 90.44 trillion, or 40 percent of the 2009 education budget.
The Ministry of National Education estimates 27.13 million kids, or 95.5 percent of children aged between 7 and 12 years, will attend school next year. Over 9.46 million children will attend secondary education next year, representing about 60 percent of children aged between 12 and 15 years.
The 2003 law on national education said that the education budget should not include the salaries of teachers and other educational staff. The Constitutional Court annulled this ruling in February, allowing the government to include teachers' salaries, previously included in the budget for civil servants' wages, to be included instead as part of the education budget, so as to help the government comply with the constitutional mandate that it must allocate 20 percent of state expenditure to education.
Critics soon slammed this ruling, saying that salaries would eat up most of the education budget, while little would be left to improve other budget items.
Students can directly benefit from increases in the School Operational Aids (BOS) fund, which will contribute up to Rp 300,000 per eligible elementary school student in 2009 compared to the current Rp 254,000. Similarly the Fund will contribute up to Rp 420,000 to each eligible junior high school student, compared to Rp 354,000 this year.
Others educational aid programs will include the book aid program, in which the government will increase the amount of free textbooks distributed to students from three to five per student per year, plus increased scholarships for targeted poor students.
The rest of the funds available to the directorate general for the management of basic and secondary education will be allocated to: rehabilitation and construction of school buildings, construction of school labs, subsidies for international-standard school candidates, information and communication technology programs and a range of national and international science, arts and sports student Olympiads.
Suyanto said it was hard to achieve free basic education, unless regional administrations shared the burden, as the Jakarta and South Sulawesi administrations were doing.
"And it's only possible to free students from school operational fees, but not from investment fees," he added.