I Wish Indonesia Has 'National Sorry Day'

As we know, Australia, our neighbor has a brilliant idea about "National Sorry Day". In 1998, a coalition of Australian community groups declared May 26 “National Sorry Day”: an annual day of atonement for the social-engineering policy that ripped an estimated 50,000 children from their Aboriginal families between 1910 and the 1970s. But it took Australia’s government another decade to utter an official apology.

By some accounts, the policy of removing mostly mixed-race children from their Aboriginal tribes was well-intentioned. Officials and missionaries, arguing that the children would have more advantages in mainstream Australian society, took them to be raised in orphanages, boarding schools or white homes. The policy created six decades’ worth of what Australians call the “stolen generations,” children who lost their cultural and familial identities, and many of whom never saw their relatives again.

Speaking about "stolen generations" Corruption within the well-funded Indonesian education system is a major factor in the failure of the Ministry of National Education to meet its policy goals, which is "making golden generations". Massive systemic corruption inside the institution only causing massive impact in reducing the number of children dropping out of school because inability in paying tuition fee and inappropriate manner improving facilities and standards. in other words, indeed, the “horrorable” Ministry of Culture and Education are the main cause of our "stolen generations" existence.

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.

I would definitely  say that  the ministry “IS SLEEPING!". otherwise, something in our education system should had been changed lately. there shouldn't be any excuse LIKE “The ministry has managed its funds according to legal regulations,” .

I have a very simple solution for this important matter. I call the ministry officials, since you have our money tax, held a "National  Sorry Day" for stealing our young generations future for decades, and stop corruption in your department!

MR. G, founder of "Primagama English Kertanegara Course"

Jl. Kertanegara iv no 10 Semarang (085727200588/ gregdaru@gmail.com)