Rp 9,3 t allocated to rehabilitate elementary school buildings

Jakarta, NU Online
The government has set aside Rp9.3 trillion in funds to rehabilitate 132 thousand damaged classrooms at elementary schools across the country this year, an official said.
   
"The total budget funds needed for the project are Rp14 trillion. The rest will be made available next year," Deputy National Education Minister Fasli Jalal said after receiving participants of the 2010 young national leaders forum facilitated by the US non-governmental organization, World Vision, at the National Education Ministry here on Thursday.
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The elementary schools including Islamic elementary schools (madrasah ibtidaiyah/MI) were among 178 thousand such schools built under a presidential instruction (inpres). However, many of the buildings had low quality, he said.
   
"The school buildings have been damaged and therefore, we will rehabilitate them every year. In 2010 alone, the government will spend Rp9.3 trillion on the project," he said as quoted by kompas.com.
    
The budget allocations would be needed to build new classrooms,  reconstruct and repair damaged school buildings, among others, he said.
   
"We hope the damaged elementary school buildings can be improved," he said.
   
Fasli said the government would also build new kindergartens integrated with elementary schools and junior high schools particularly in remote areas to give students easy access. 
   
"We want the distance between the school buildings and students’ homes not to be more than two kilometers. Otherwise, students particularly those living in remote areas will find it hard to get to the schools," he said. (dar)