CLASSROOM COLLAPSE

Rommy Pujianto, Media Indonesia

As many as 6.5 million primary school students, of 31 million across the country, sit daily in classrooms with rotting roofs and cracked walls at imminent risk of collapse. During rainstorms these classrooms are almost completely unusable; rendering them unfit for use as educational facilities, if not outright dangerous.

Children are still studying in such spaces for the simple reason that there is literally nowhere else to go. According to 2011 Ministry of Education data, 187,855 state primary school classrooms, out of a total of 895,761, are either badly damaged or completely unsuitable for teaching.

Although the condition of schools in the outer lying provinces is truly deplorable, some of the worst examples of dilapidated schools are located in or around the capital, Jakarta; a modern, cosmopolitan city, the economic hub of a booming economy and the centre of government.

Also ironic is the fact that, since 2008, the Indonesian government has allocated 20 percent of the national budget for education, which totaled 246 trillion rupiah (USD27.4 billion) in 2011. This is the biggest percentage in Indonesia’s history, despite it being a requirement under the constitution.

This is a fantastic figure on paper, yet there has been no significant impact on the development of national education, and certainly no improvement in the state of the nation’s school buildings. Dispersal of funds for the reconstruction of school buildings has been slow and often marred by allegations of corruption.

CAPTIONS

Caption 1: State primary school SDN Cipanas in Taktakan sub-district, Serang City, Banten, just 2 hours from the capital.

Caption 2: Third grade Teacher Jawini in the classroom with his students, Maulina Saputri (on his right) and (from left) Fadilahwati, Triana Sari, Usi Suliatiawati and Mariana,  at state primary school, SDN Jakung in Cilowong sub-district, Serang City, Banten.

Caption 3: Fourth grade students use a small space adjacent to a storage room to study at state primary school SDN Sindagsono VI in Tangerang District, Banten Province.

Caption 4, 5, and 6: Damaged state schools: SDN Leuwihalang, Bogor Province (left and right), and SDN Sindagsono VI, Tangerang District (center).