The School

In our stay in Dusun Jurug we had the pleasure of visiting Sekolah Dasar Karangtengah II, an elementry school with 186 students and 10 teachers. A school with bad economy, as so many other schools in Indonesia. But this school should be different, an example of how corruption affects the little man.

A German NGO promised the school 550 million Rupiah. The money was sent from Germany, but the money never arrived at the school. When the money is asked for, no one has seen or heard of them. This results in that the teachers feel that thy don’t get enough money in pay for their work. But still the teachers have in average of 1.4 million Rupiah a month, more than the average man.

The school is public and not operated by a religious organisation, but because all the students are Muslim, they use the opportunity to be good Muslims and pray two times during the school day. Apart from the Mosque, the only religious institution in the dusun is a Muslim kindergarten.

The school is also part of a food programme supported by the government, but there is not enough money for more than two days of food a week, and even then it is not enough food for a complete meal.

The headmaster’s dream for developing the school is about getting a real library and books with good literature. The biggest changes for the schools after the fall of Suharto are that they now have better wages for the teachers and the possibility to make the curriculum better fit for the local society.

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