Anita Rachman – Corruption within the well-funded education system is a major factor in the failure of the Ministry of National Education to meet its policy goals, including reducing the number of children dropping out of school and improving facilities and standards, a leading anticorruption watchdog said on Wednesday.

Ade Irawan, public service monitoring coordinator with Indonesia Corruption Watch, said that the failure was particularly telling given the central government had increased the ministry's budget, making it the best-funded government department.

"Corruption is one of the main factors that has caused the ministry to fail to reach its target – providing good-quality education for Indonesian students," Ade said. "Why, despite their bigger budget share, do we still see a high number of dropouts and classrooms continuing to collapse?"

Corruption in the ministry's budget management was evident from Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) audit results, particularly in school operation aid (BOS) and the special allocation fund (DAK) – both designed to guarantee free schooling for all.

The BPK audit revealed that in 2007, six out of 10 schools in a sample of 3,237 schools misused these funds, with an average of Rp 13.7 million in misused funds per school, or a total of Rp 28 billion ($2.8 million).

ICW data also showed that from 2004-2009, authorities have investigated 142 education corruption cases, which caused total losses of Rp 243.3 billion. From those cases, 287 suspects were been named, most of them are officials at the local level.

West Java was named as the most corrupt province in the education sector with 21 cases from the same period, followed by Central Java and North Sumatra.

"It's sad, that corruption in education are only seen as trivial [by the authorities]. Sad because it has prevented our youth, especially those from low-income families, from gaining an education," Ade said.

"It seems that increases in the education budget has also brought about an increase in corruption," he said.

Febri Hendri, member of the public service monitoring team, stated that in 2004-08, over 4.3 million students dropped out from elementary and junior high schools. He said that the government had only managed to reduce the number of dropouts by 5 percent during this period.

"And number of unqualified teachers is only being reduced by 10 percent per year," Febri said. ICW urged the president to quickly evaluate the department's budget management.

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) is also expected to prioritize investigations of corruption in the Ministry of National Education.

The commission has also urged the public to become actively involved in the education department's budget management at the school level in order to encourage schools and other education institutions to be transparent and accountable.

Muhadjir, the ministry's spokesman, said that the ministry "is not sleeping. "The ministry has managed its funds according to legal regulations," he said.

He added that all the ministry's achievements have been published in a book, where people can read and check them.