Our consultants have already visited each of the MBE districts in order to assess the present condition of education management and the conditions in schools.

Survey of Education Management
The survey included the following areas:

• Finance,
• Planning,
• Teachers
• Facilities.

Education Finance
Approximately 90% of education expenditure is used to pay salaries, mainly teachers’ salaries. Funding allocated for school operations is very small (between 2% and 7%). Our survey of schools shows that primary schools receive on average Rp.10,000 per pupil per year, while junior secondary schools get on average Rp.40,000, while schools receive on average more than Rp.90,000 per pupil from parents. In order to implement School Based Management (SBM) in a meaningful and effective way the allocation of operational funding to schools needs to rise sharply. (Look at the examples from Pekalongan district and the city of Magelang below for comparison).

Teachers
All district complain that they are short of teachers. In fact, the data shows a reasonable overall ratio of pupils to teachers.

The main problems lies in the distribution of teachers. There are too many teachers in some schools, while other have shortages. One of the schools visited had 120 pupils and 18 teachers, a ratio of 1 teacher to 6.7 pupils!

The Condition of School Facilities
The condtion of schools in a number of districts is relatively poor. Many of the classrooms are in need of major repair. In general primary school buildings are in worse condition than secondary schools. From our data it appears that condition of schools in Banyuwangi is much better condition than in other districts.

In all districts funds for school repair in the form of block grants from national projects from MoNE or other donors have been delegated to be managed by school committees. In general the use of funds by school committees is reported as being much better than that if it is managed by contractors. In some cases schools have been able to repair three classrooms with the funding for two classrooms, because of assistance from local communities and more effective management of the funds. In Probolinggo and Banyuwangi they are currently considering giving APBD (local government) funds for repairs as block grants directly to school committees.

Using School Facilities More Efficiently

School Mergers
Several districts have already merged primary schools with small numbers of pupils. For example, Pati merged 88 schools in 2002-2003. As a result of the merging of schools, teachers and school facilities can be used more efficiently. Facilities which are no longer being used by the school can be put to other uses, including being used as secondary schools. Have a look at the report on page 7 from Sukabumi, West Java, district concerning the merging of schools.

Multi-Grade Schools
Nearby schools can be merged, but where distances between schools are greater, schools can often not be merged even when they have few pupils. In these cases it is better to create Multi-Grade Schools (known as Sekolah Kecil in Indonesian). For example, if a school only has 60 pupils, two or three teachers are sufficient, as long as each teacher teaches two or three age groups of children in the same room at the same time. This is a normal occurrence in most other countries.