Sectoral Competition Bothers Education Budget
Wednesday, 14 February, 2007 | 16:21 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: Sectoral competition between state institutions and departments is the greatest obstacle for the government to meet an education budget of 20 percent.

According to Heri Achmadi, Deputy Head of Education Commission at the House of Representatives (DPR), the government and the DPR are so far bogged down by sectoral competition among state institutions regarding fund allocation of the state budget.

“After close observation, every fiscal year almost all research departments compete to be allocated funds from the State Budget,” said Heri in his statement at the Constitutional Court yesterday (02/13).

Heri was inquired as the representative of DPR at a session of test rights requests over Law Number 18/2006 on the 2007 State Budget.

The test rights requests were proposed by the Republic of Indonesia Teachers Association (PGRI).

PGRI said it considered that the government had broken its promise for it has only allocated 11.8 percent or about Rp90.1 trillion for education from the total Rp763.6 trillion in the 2007 State Budget.

In fact, according to the constitution mandate, the education budget should be at least 20 percent of the State Budget.

Heri said that in the State Budget Law, the educational budget was the only budget mentioned as a priority.

Therefore, said Heri, the government should have allocated an educational budget of 20 percent first, before issuing the regulation.

Sandy Indra Pratama