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Leyes y políticas nacionales sobre derechos de escolaridad o enseñanza gratuita – Indonesia

Importa si el Estado facilita la enseñanza gratuitamente o si cobra derechos de enseñanza. Todos los Estados del mundo han firmado por lo menos un tratado internacional que les obliga a hacer que la enseñanza primaria sea gratuita y obligatoria y que la educación secundaria llegue a serlo progresivamente. Pero la educación no puede ser obligatoria si no es gratuita también y esta contradicción suele ser ignorada con demasiada frecuencia. Además, ¿qué significa realmente la enseñanza gratuita en un mundo lleno de costos evidentes y ocultos para los estudiantes, los padres y las comunidades locales? Según los resultados de una encuesta realizada por Katarina Tomasevski en 2006, la enseñanza no era realmente gratuita en la gran mayoría de los países del mundo. La información que figura a continuación sobre su país, fue sacada de este importantísimo estudio.

 

Las leyes y políticas nacionales son las aplicaciones de la constitución, aunque pueden ser más avanzadas, porque son examinadas y elaboradas de nuevo con más frecuencia. Las leyes son hechas por el gobierno, los parlamentarios y los burócratas, a menudo en consulta con la sociedad civil. No obstante, esto también las expone a la vulnerabilidad y el retroceso, pues pueden convertirse en instrumentos de la política y las prioridades a corto plazo. Las leyes y las políticas son accesibles al cambio y la influencia por medio del proceso democrático y las campañas de la sociedad civil. Y sus violaciones deben, si es posible, ser impugnadas en los tribunales o mediante la revisión judicial.

 

 

 

 

El Estado es el actor principal en cualquier reclamo del derecho a la educación, es el principal detentor de obligaciones, el principal ejecutor, es el garante, la firma respecto a las normas internacionales que lo obligan a respetar, proteger y realizar el derecho a la educación. El Estado debe, por lo tanto, ser juzgado o cuestionado sobre la base de su texto principal sobre el derecho a la educación, sea éste la constitución, las leyes o las políticas.

Indonesia has one of the oldest constitutional guarantees of the right to education, which predates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by three years. Its 1945 Constitution says: “Every citizen has the right to obtain education. The Government shall create and execute a system of national education provided by law”. This ‘right to obtain education’ was not defined so to require the state to ensure that primary education is free. On the contrary, governmental policy was for a long time to tolerate, if not encourage parental payments:

 

Sources from parents are usually in the form of monthly fees, entrance fees, term and final test fees, and extra curriculum fees. On average, fees contribute 35% of the total school revenue, excluding teachers’ salaries. 

 

A dual system of public and private, free and for-fee, religious and secular educational institutions forms part of the law. In particular, the law guarantees freedom of fund-raising for “private schooling and education”. Governmental obligations in education are gradually being clarified and specified. At the time of my mission to Indonesia as the Special Rapporteur on the right to education, in 2003, the law provided confusing answers to the question whether primary education should be free or for-fee. A draft education law stipulated that central and local government “have to ensure the availability of funds for the implementation of education for every Indonesian citizen from ages seven to fifteen”.

 

It added that communities had to provide additional resources and stipulated that every pupil had to pay fees unless exempted. This should have been – but was not - the case for all pupils in compulsory education. School fees were thereby both outlawed and allowed.

 

Increased public investment in education was elevated among parliamentary priorities as part of democratization after turbulent changes in 1997-1999.

 

Legal reform which aimed to transform budgetary allocations for education from discretionary to obligatory was described by the governmental delegation to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 2003 as follows:

 

One of the major developments registered in the reform of Indonesia’s system of education is the adoption of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution on 10 August2002. The newly amended Constitution not only guarantees every Indonesian’s right to education, but also the corresponding obligation of the state in this regard. Article 31 stipulates the government’s obligation to ensure the fulfilment of the right of every citizen to basic education, as well as the financial responsibility which this fulfilment entails. In addition, the state must develop and implement a national education system, and earmark at least 20% of its own and local governments’ budgets to meet the system’s requirements.

 

That commitment has yet to be translated into governmental policy. The government introduced its budget for 2005 with an explanatory note that existing constitutional and legal guarantees “have yet to be met”. Merely 12% of the budget was allocated to education, much less than the law mandates. The government explained that the obligatory 20% for education was “gradually accommodated”. Guy de Jonquieres has found that “investment is desperately needed in basic education, sadly neglected since Indonesia’s 1997 financial crisis”.

The 2003 education law specifies that government is obliged to guarantee full financing of education for children aged 7-15 and no cost should be charged to children or their families.

 

However, decentralization had shifted fiscal responsibility from the central government to provinces and communities. There is little country-wide information available on the financing of education and what is available points to inequalities. Primary education is free in parts of the country, for-fee in others. Much as elsewhere, the poorest communities and provinces are the least able to ensure public funding for education. Education International has reported that “fees, official and unofficial, including payments for registration, books, examinations, testing, and uniforms” continue to be charged.