| Indonesian Government to prioritize education for disabled people | | Print | |
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The central government is set to implement a budget increase for the school operational aid (BOS) fund next year with priority given to the development of education for disabled people, Education Minister Muhammad Nuh said. Speaking in Surabaya on Monday, Nuh said the priority was given as part of the non–discriminative educational policy program aimed at improving the skills of disabled students to make them equal to those of other students. "There are many disabled students who cannot access education at public schools. Such discrimination normally occurs during the entrance selection process," Nuh told The Jakarta Post during his official visit to the Karya Mulia school for disabled people in Surabaya. He added that discrimination violated disability, child protection and national education laws, all of which stipulated that every child deserved access to education free from discrimination. "There are still many problems in ensuring education for disabled people, such as poor educational infrastructure and teachers' low salaries," he said. "As a result, many teachers prefer to teach at general schools rather than at schools for disabled people," he added. The Education Ministry said it would allocate more of its 2010 BOS budget to develop education for disabled people. "We haven't yet decided on how much to allocate, but it will certainly be higher than the allocation for the general education sector," he said. The government this year had increased the BOS budget to Rp 16 trillion from Rp 11.2 trillion in 2008 to boost further development of the nine–year compulsory education program. Data from the Education Ministry showed that of nearly 680,000 school–aged disabled children (5–18 years old), only some 66,500 received a full nine–year education. Their disabilities ranged from blindness, deafness, mental disability, physical disability, multiple disabilities and autism. Meanwhile, there are only 2,330 teachers qualified to teach at schools for disabled people, which is insufficient compared to the number of disabled school–aged children.The chairman of the headmasters' working forum of schools for disabled people (MKKS–LB) and the Kediri branch of the teacher working group (KKG) of schools for disabled people, Sujianto, said there were only 30 fully–employed and 61 honorary teachers for over 500 disabled students in schools for disabled people in the regency. "The state of education for disabled children in Kediri is very poor. A teacher should ideally only teach five students at a time and not the whole class as currently happens," he told the Post. Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com |
