By Kidung Asmara | Research Trainee
“On the street, we sing for bucks so that we could fund ourselves to learn at school –or be prepared for dropout.”
In the middle of the day, two children busk from one street stall to the next. They were singing while clapping hands to keep on-tempo, holding a plastic container, whilst asking for change. At the time they were at a meatballs stall –a small stall that was overloaded with people having lunch. Sure it seemed like a gold mine for them, until they met eyes with a man whom they later identified as Ignasius Meak –their school principal at Bina Pusaka Elementary School in Koja District of Jakarta. Feeling embarrassed, they spontaneously said, ‘Look, that’s Mr. Ignasius! Run!'. Ignasius watched them run away, feeling pitiful that his students combed the streets looking for money but more so over the fact that his students were embarrassed by their behaviour to try and fund their education.
These children busk after school time to help their parents fund their school, while some others go through trash or work at the bus terminal, etc. These jobs are forcing them onto the streets, leading to juvenile delinquency in areas such as drug abuse, prostitution, pickpocketing, and other criminal acts.
Fortunately, these children still keep their optimism in achieving a decent standard of education. Numerous others are not so fortunate, and their make the decision to discontinue their education. According to statistics, from 4,115,553 elementary school graduates in year 2016/2017, only 3,354,222 proceeding to a junior high school in year 2017/2018.[1]
Their failure to carry forward formal education indicates the end of their learning process. Which means, the chance for them to gain greater employment opportunities than their parents is lower. In addition, children who work part-time have difficulty in dividing their focus between study and work. Not to mention that they will also need to postpone for at least a year to prepare money for junior high school entrance fee which is around 10 times of their monthly tuition. Provide them with a scholarship to pay for their junior high entrance school fee!
Source of Data:
[1] Statistics of Ministry of Education and Culture 2017/2018
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