5. Maintenance of School Facilities

All districts have a backlog of repairs to schools. Chart 4 shows the proportion of classrooms which are in (a) good condition, (b) need minor repairs and (c) need major repair or total renovation.

There is a large difference between the condition of schools in Banyuwangi, where only 5.7% of SD classrooms are classed as in need of major repair compared to 25%, 31.4% and 29.7% respectively in Batang, Probolinggo and Pacitan. Such a large difference almost certainly reflects real difference in the condition of buildings. Based on previous experience, some reservations must be expressed over the quality of data. How accurate and up-to-date is the data? Are the criteria being used to assess condition of schools the same?

Table 7 shows that in all areas the condition of primary schools (particularly SD) is much worse than secondary schools (particularly SMP). Pacitan, for example, reports that no junior secondary school class-rooms (SMP and MTs) are in need of major repair, while 29.7% of SD and 16.9% of MI classrooms are in need of major repair. Before decentralisation SMP were managed entirely by central government, whereas the buildings, personnel and financing of SD were to a large degree already managed by local government.

Under this system funding for SMP was much more generous, a pattern which continues until today even under decentralisation and is illustrated in the analysis of funding to target schools. (see below in section 3.2.1) The condition of Madrasah Ibtidayah and Madrasah Tsanawiyah is generally significantly worse than that of their conventional counterparts, SD and SMP. This reflects the fact that most madrasah are privately funded and draw their students from the poorer levels of society.

There appears to be no integrated program for rehabilitation in any of the districts based on a list of priorities. In non-MBE districts there have been reports of corruption as a major factor in distorting these programs Where grants are given from various national and donor projects to repair building, the funds are generally managed by school committees, as required by the rules of each project. However, APBD funding for rehabilitation is still managed at district level in all districts, although moves are being considered in Probolinggo and Banyuwangi to introduce management of these finds by school committees.

Where schools have been merged, they are generally returned to the local government and put to new use, in several cases they have been used for community learning centres, open junior secondary schools and special schools for handicapped children.

Conclusions and planned further action

The school mapping and data collection outlined earlier will focus on a number of pressing issues, which, if addressed properly, have the potential to greatly increase the efficiency of the use of resources. These include the issues of school mergers, multi-grade schools, deployment of teachers and the maintenance and repair of buildings, especially in the light of efficiencies achieved through school mergers and the creation of multi-grade schools.

The program will encourage districts to draw up prioritised list of repairs based on the data collected and will press for the all funding for repairs and maintenance to be allocated in the form of block grants to be managed by school committees, as is the current best practice with donors funds.

The data collected will also assist with planning to support the building of new schools to achieve the government aim of universal nine years basic education.

2.3 The Quality of Teaching

With the exception of Probolinggo the other districts have little knowledge or experience of either school based management or the new competency based curriculum. Where training has taken place there is little visible impact, although substantial funding had been allocated to 'quality improvement' activities. The reports on the school visits cover this aspect in more detail (see section 3)

⁵ Examples of how corruption can distort building and maintenance programs appeared in a recent newspaper report, which found evidence that in certain districts (not within the MBE areas) schools were having to pay funds to local government in order to be included in renovation programs and having to promise to pay a proportion of the funds to Dinas Pendidikan. An article in the newspaper Kompas on 21 August 2003 sets out detailed findings whereby 49 schools admitted having to make such payments to obtain funding under the School Improvement Grants Program funded by the Dutch Government. Similar findings were obtained from a district in Jambi province.

2.4 Dewan Pendidikan and School Committee

A ministerial decree (no. 044/U/2002) has required the establishment of Dewan Pendidikan in each district and School Committees for each school. The role of each is defined as advising, supporting and controlling and mediating.

In all districts the role of the Dewan Pendidikan is much more limited. In most cases it is confined to giving advice and training to school committees. One problems that occurs in most of the districts is that the Dewan Pendidikan are led and staffed by retired bureaucrats, often from Dinas Pendidikan, who are steeped in traditional approaches to addressing problems. As such they tend to merely approve what local government has decided rather than suggesting innovative solutions or lobbying for change.

School committees have largely taken over the role of the old BP3 and confine their activities to fund raising. Only in a number of school in Probolinggo, where they have been influenced by SBM programs, have a number of committees started to be involved in school planning and the monitoring of school activities and the use of funds.

Conclusions and planned further action

The school committee, with its brief of advising, supporting and controlling schools has the potential increase the transparency and accountability of schools. However, to date committees are generally fulfilling the role of the old BP3 (parents' association) with their activities limited to fund raising. There is a lack of clarity in particular about the rights of school committees concerning 'controlling' schools. Do they have the right to demand reports from the school principal? What further action can they take, if they are dissatisfied with school performance? etc. How does the role of school committees and dewan pendidikan translate into a program of activities to support the role?

The program will work with the district governments, dewan pendidikan and school committees to develop operational models of school committees and dewan pendidikan that advise, support and control their school and mediate with communities and the DPRD.

This issue will be included in the upcoming training of target schools and their communities, where school principals, teachers and community members (including school committees) will sit together to make operational plans for improving the quality of their schools.