Benjamin Soloway & Josua Gantan, Lebak, Banten – As we make our way from Jakarta to the heart of Banten province – which stretches from Tangerang, the capital's sprawling western suburb and a large city in its own right, to the waters of the Sunda Strait, which separate Java from Sumatra – wide boulevards give way to dirt lanes that taper to narrow, muddy tracks, almost impassable by car.

Just six hours from Jakarta's expanding multitude of high-rise towers and malls, Lebak looks much like it must have for centuries: goats and chickens wander freely through villages made up of small clusters of traditional homes surrounded by forests and rice paddies.

We're in Lebak to see what conditions are like in schools here – schools that rely for their funding on a district made infamous by an election-rigging scandal that brought down Akil Mochtar, the former chief justice of the Constitution Court, in the province where detained governor, political matriarch and corruption suspect Ratu Atut Chosiyah leads an administration that allegedly skimmed off a third of the social aid and grant budget in a single year, boldly taking money intended for the poorest residents of an area where poverty is on the rise.

"In Banten, especially in the villages, you see things like dangling suspension bridges and roads full of potholes," Haji Asep, the chief of the village of Sangkanwangi – a typical community of several thousand in Lebak's Cimarga subdistrict – tells us over tea in his home. "Children have to pass through them every day to go to school."

One such bridge, in Serang, the provincial capital, collapsed into the Cibanten River last month, killing two people.

"Why is it so difficult to build this kind of facility for residents? I know the Banten government can afford the bridge, but they don't care," Ayib Najib, a member of the Banten provincial legislature, told the Jakarta Globe at the time.

Asep says many of the schools in the area have fallen into a state of dangerous disrepair. "The schools needs better maintenance," he says. "We hope some help will come, but the government is slow. We don't know if it is because the budget is not enough. We have proposed, asking for help many times. Yet until now, there is no realization."

He says that a conditional cash transfer program, which pays families small sums if their children attend school, provides some help, but that the schools themselves suffer from a severe lack of funding.

"Many school children come from a poor economic background," he says. "Their parents work odd jobs. Many are rubber tappers here. Their money is hardly enough to send their children to school. Yet they really want to get their children educated, they don't want them to stop schooling."

'Despite all difficulties'

We ask Asep to take us to the nearest school, but it's noon, so the building is already locked up for the day. He directs us north to the village of Sangkanmanik, where we visit a public primary school: SDN Sangkanmanik 1, which is tidy and clean, but in visible disrepair.

"A landslide occurred here on January 13," Sudirman, 32, a school administrator, tells us, pointing to a steep, muddy slope that ends right at the walls of one of the school's two low-lying buildings. Rohim, 32, the neighborhood unit head, says the landslide slammed into a classrom, destroying much of it – not for the first time.

"The landslide happened at night; in the morning we found out that the school was heavily damaged," he says. "But thank God there were no children inside when the incident happened. If the event took place in daytime, it would have been very dangerous for the children."

A similar landslide, he says, occurred during last year's rainy season. And just like last time, 50 villagers showed up the next day to repair the building and build a makeshift concrete landslide barrier, which they accomplished in one day, using their own funds.

"Because of the landslide, parents are very wary and concerned with their children attending school here," Sudirman says. "When it rains, everyone is told to leave the classrooms by the principal. We fear that a landslide might take place again if it rains. We have asked for the help of the subdistrict government and the subdistrict Executive Technical Unit [UPT], but there was no help in response."

The landslide barrier – barely waist-high and engineered by amateurs – is already beginning to crack in places.

"We fixed it using the villagers' money," Sudirman says. "We don't know why there isn't any financial help from the government... We ask for help every time a disaster hits us. But each time there's no response. We reported the landslide to the subdistrict government. They came here to observe the situation, but there was no follow-up."

He says the community has no recourse but to rely on its own minimal resources and hope for the best. "It has been like this for some time, since 2013," Sudirman says. "By rights, we should have gotten the funds from the district government. They promised it to us, but until now we've received nothing. I don't know why."

The school, he says, was once in better shape. "We used to have another classroom and a library, but they collapsed," he says. "The buildings were too old... The books that we have here have been reused for two to three years. School children don't own the books, the books are kept and used together in school."

The children seem mostly unfazed by the poor conditions, according to Sudirman. "They walk to get here," he says. "They travel as far as four kilometers to reach school. The roads around here are in bad condition... Yet the children are determined to come to school despite all difficulties. When it rains, they come with their umbrellas. When extra lessons are held, they attend."

We visit the school principal, Haji Kodir, in his comfortable home nearby, and he bears out Sudirman's account. "I have often sent proposals to the district government," he says. "I requested aid for school renovations and better infrastructure, but there was no response."

'All is well'

We head to the subdistrict education office, but we stop along the way at an inter-village girls' football match, where hundreds of spectators – two whole villages, more or less – cheer on their teams, who are playing barefoot in the mud.

"I love going to school," Renaldi, a seventh grader, tells us before returning to his perch atop a mound of gravel. "After I finish middle school, God willing, I want to become a policeman."

We arrive to find the education office locked, but in a warung (small shop) across the street we meet Gangsa, who says he is a supervisor in the subdistrict UPT, which oversees the development of schools under the purview of the Banten Education Office.

"We supervise 38 schools across 17 villages," he says. "All is well. The schools are progressing just fine. We have enough funds." He says he hasn't heard about any landslides. "We hope Cimarga will continue to do well in its education sector," he says.

'Fertile grounds for corruption'

"I think it is clear: in Banten, education is hardly the priority of the regional government," Indonesia Corruption Watch researcher Ade Irawan says. "Education is used by the dynasty for profiteering. If you look at the corruption cases in Banten, education is one of their main targets. There are many government projects related to education in Banten. They are fertile ground for corruption."

When corruption watchdogs refer to "the dynasty" in Banten, they are talking about detained corruption suspect Ratu Atut, who is still the governor, and her family. Nearly a dozen of her direct relatives hold political office in the province, and her brother, money-laundering suspect Tubagus "Wawan" Chaeri Wardana – married to South Tangerang Mayor Airin Rachmi Diany – has had almost 40 vehicles confiscated by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in recent weeks. He owns two private islands, his lawyer admitted on Monday.

Airin said in January that the couple's gaudy assets – which included a Lamborghini, a Ferrari and a Rolls-Royce; a large house and a mansion on lanes off Jalan Denpasar in Kuningan, South Jakarta; and at least 102 properties – "Come from Allah and belong to Allah."

ICW data show that companies owned by Ratu Atut's family have controlled public projects in Banten worth $100 million, and ICW alleges that the local government stole some 30 percent of the central government's allocation for community organizations and social aid programs in the province in one year alone.

While poverty fell in Indonesia between September 2012 and March 2013, it rose in Banten, and was especially high for a region so close to the capital.

Problems in Indonesia's education system extend far beyond Banten. In the most recent Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Program for International Student Assessment rankings, which looked at student aptitude in 65 countries, Indonesia placed 64th, ahead of only Peru. In the UK-based Pearson rankings, which looked at 40 countries in 2013, Indonesia came in dead last.

According to ICW's investigations, corruption is a major culprit, and in 2013, according to the NGO, Banten had a more corrupt education system than any other province in Indonesia.

Eko Endang Koswara, the head of the provincial education office, was arrested for corruption in 2010, and the education chief in Pandeglang district was detained for alleged corruption last year.

"If you look closely at the regional elections, you might find that the money meant for education purposes is being spent for political purposes," Ade says. "For instance, school operational funds are spent to purchase banners for the incumbents [seeking re-election]. We have our research; these things are proven."

He says multi-layered, endemic corruption harms the quality and accessibility of education, and, in some instances, the safety of students.

"In the southern regions of Banten, such as Lebak and Pandeglang, the availability of teachers and decent school buildings is a problem," he says. "If you look at the corruption pattern in Banten, there are a few layers.

"The first layer involves teachers. Here, teachers place illegal fees on school children. The excuses may include book purchases or exam fees.

"The second layer involves school principal. Here, the school operational fund [BOS] might be embezzled. It is not seldom that school budget funds are embezzled by the school principal. The third layer involves government officials at the education agency.

"The fourth layer involves high-level government officials. Projects related to school infrastructure and teaching facilities have been corrupted. The primary consequence of that is it lowers the accessibility of education to the public, especially to the poor. It makes it hard to be well-educated if you are born [in Banten]."

Although corruption can be found at nearly every link in the chain between the regional administration and its constituents, Ade says that corruption at the top causes the most harm.

"If the district leaders are clean and not corrupt, chances are the school principals and the rest will not be corrupt as well," he says. "Government officials are often hard-pressed to embezzle money for their bosses above them. Their jobs and positions are at stake should they fail to fulfill their bosses' corrupt demands."

'I would have died'

We head from the subdistrict education office to Bina Bakti, where we've heard from villagers that a school collapsed on Feb. 5, the day prior.

When we arrive at the site of SLTP Bina Bakti, a small private school with about 90 students that relies on government funding, all we find are remains. The walls still stand but the former classrooms are strewn with wreckage.

"It rained the whole day yesterday and the wind was strong," Ade, who helps run the school, tells us as we pick our way through the rubble. "The school suddenly collapsed at 6 a.m. Luckily, school had not started yet, so there weren't any children inside." He says classes are held in shifts in a neighborhood house for now, but he doesn't know of a plan beyond that.

"The school administration is confused now," he says. "We did receive school operational assistance funds from the government, but it is not quite enough. We hope the government can do more. Take pity on the school children here. The national exams will be coming soon, and they have no school to study in. Their parents are worried."

Nur, 35, the owner of a nearby warung, says her customers have dried up because the school is gone. "If possible, I hope the reconstruction of the school can be done speedily. We seek the help of the government," she says.

Her son, Angga, 13, standing beside his mother, surveys the ruins grimly. "Luckily, at the time it happened none of my friends were inside, nobody died," he says. "I was scared. If I were inside the building, I would have died."

[Alexandra Ellerbeck contributed reporting.]