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50 Sekolah Rakyat for poor students to open this year
The government is planning to roll out around 50 "community schools" across the nation this year in an interministerial initiative that targets students from low-income families across the archipelago.
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A teacher guides pupils on April 17, 2024, in a classroom with a damaged ceiling at SDN 1 Petuk Katimpun state elementary school in Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan. The principal has said the school is in such a precarious condition it poses a safety hazard. (Antara/Auliya Rahman)
S
ocial Affairs Minister Saifullah Yusuf has announced a plan to open dozens of Sekolah Rakyat (community school) later this year to target students from underprivileged communities, especially those who hail from families in the lowest income brackets.
“Around 50 schools are ready to operate this year, but we will first report everything to the President,” Saifullah said earlier this week at the State Palace in Jakarta, as quoted by Kompas.com.
“We are coordinating with various ministries to make this initiative a reality. This is a collaborative effort to translate the President’s vision into action,” he added.
The initiative involves the Higher Education, Science and Technology Ministry in designing the Sekolah Rakyat curriculum, while the Elementary and Secondary Education Ministry handles teacher recruitment and the Public Works Ministry provides school facilities and infrastructure.
Saifullah added that in the future, Sekolah Rakyat would offer room and board to elementary, middle and vocational school students.
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The goal is to have at least two Sekolah Rakyat in each province and one in every district or municipality, with the project to be accelerated by “temporarily” repurposing 40 unused facilities belonging to the Social Affairs Ministry, according to the minister.
“However in East Java, all of the ministry’s facilities were transferred to the provincial administration during the administration of president Gus Dur [Abdurrahman Wahid],” Saifullah said on Sunday in Surabaya, as quoted by InfoPublik, the communications ministry’s public information portal.
Two universities in the province, Brawijaya University and Surabaya State University, have meanwhile offered their facilities to support the Sekolah Rakyat program.
“This school targets those at the lowest economic level interested in pursuing education. After expressing interest, they will take an academic aptitude test. The curriculum and all necessary preparations are being developed in parallel,” Saifullah said.
The government has also promised to fix educational facilities and school buildings in remote areas in line with an instruction from President Prabowo Subianto, issued on March 4 during a cabinet meeting and iftar gathering involving dozens of agency heads at the presidential palace compound in Jakarta.
