Jakarta – A study by the National Education Ministry shows many schools throughout the nation are still charging students with various obscure expenses.

Education Minister Muhammad Nuh reported Monday that his ministry had monitored 1,289 schools, including elementary, junior high and high schools in 33 provinces and 84 regencies and cities from July 18 to July 22, 2011 and found that most schools still charged students for additional expenses.

"The expenses covered uniforms, books, building development or maintenance, registration administration, compulsory educational contributions (SPP), extra curricula money, laboratory upkeep, the orientation period and payments for tests," Nuh told reporters here on Monday.

He said the first two (uniform and books) were still acceptable, while the remaining charges, especially the SPP, were strictly prohibited. Nuh said he would therefore use the survey results to create new policies so that schools did not arbitrarily determine expenses charged to its students. "I will formulate a new policy within the week," Nuh said.

The government has mandated a compulsory nine-year education for all Indonesians and has also supported the school operational assistance (BOS) program – government aid distributed to subsidize the operational costs of schools so students do not have to pay the SPP for the elementary and junior high school levels.

The government raised the education budget by almost Rp 14.5 trillion (US$1.6 billion) in its proposed revision to the 2011 state budget - excluding Rp 2 trillion allocated for the National Education Development Fund – to more than Rp 262 trillion in total.