•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   

Surabaya. There was a price to pay for Muhammad Firdaus when he decided to move his daughter from a public school to a private one.

Rubainiyah, a third grader, has to leave home earlier because the new school is farther from their house than the old one, which was within walking distance.

“I have to leave home at 6 a.m. if I don’t want to be late for class. My father takes me on his motorcycle to save the transportation costs. And I have to wait until 4 or 5 in the afternoon because that’s when my father finishes work,” said Rubainiyah, 9.

For her father, the extra time that he must set aside to taxi his daughter to school and then collect her at the end of the day is the price he must pay to ensure she gets a good education. And he’s only too happy to do it.

Yuni Istikhah, the principal at Rubainiyah’s new school, said there were many pupils in a similar situation and that she had proposed a school bus service be provided to assist students.

The proposal is still waiting for approval, and Yuni said that in the meantime the school was providing classrooms for students to study after classes while waiting for their parents to pick them up.

“We have computers, books and educational toys for them to use,” she said.

There’s another reason Firdaus doesn’t mind making the extra trips to drop off and pick up his daughter: Despite being private, Rubainiyah’s new school, Juara Elementary School, is free.

Opened just seven months ago and home to 36 students, the school was founded by charity organization Rumah Zakat Indonesia, which collects alms from Muslims and uses the money to fund different community development programs.

There are now eight such schools across the country, the others being in Medan, Pekanbaru, Central and South Jakarta, Cimahi in West Java, Bandung and Yogyakarta. Three more elementary schools are scheduled to open this year — in Jakarta, Cilegon and Semarang. A junior high school will also be built this year in Bandung.

“At the moment we have 568 students in eight elementary schools,” said Triyono Suwito, the head of Juara’s formal education division.

In addition to regular classes, all students at Juara schools participate in extracurricular activities, including outbound training and motivational training.

Juara, which translates as “champion,” aims to produce “winners” from low-income families.

Triyono said the existing Juara schools had been established in areas where many school-age children were not attending classes, and that the same principle would apply for the four new schools to open this year. He added that the new schools would start receiving students at the start of the new academic year in July.

In selecting students, Rumah Zakat Indonesia requires proof of economic need. Applicants must fill in forms and then the school administrators carry out field checks to verify the provided information.

Triyono said the school administrators conducted interviews with each student to map their potential. He added that the schools aimed to have 25 students in each class, taught by qualified teachers holding at least a bachelor’s degree. Each month, students receive facilities worth Rp 375,000 ($40).

“So everything is free, we charge nothing,” he said. “Most of our students’ parents are in an adverse financial situation, and many of them work as ojek [motorcycle taxi] or becak [bicycle rickshaw] drivers. Some are domestic workers, laundry women, some are unemployed.”

He said the schools never pu t pressure on its students, especially in academic terms. “They come from low-income families, so from the start, we do not put any high expectations on them,” he said. “But, thank God, some of them are really smart. Our students in Bandung have ranked in the top five in some academic competitions, including English.”

He said the schools had proved so successful that they could not take all of the applicants. He added that schools could receive up to 75 applicants for just 25 places.

Endang, the principal of Juara Elementary School in Gambir, Central Jakarta, said his students had a very strong desire to learn.

“They have great enthusiasm, and many of them spend extra time here,” he told the Jakarta Globe.

He did acknowledge that there was one problem: a number of students drop out because their parents move to a different location or return to their hometowns. However, he said he remained optimistic about the overall success of his students.

Mansyur Ramli, the Ministry of National Education’s director general for research and development, said the ministry appreciated the work being done by Rumah Zakat Indonesia.

“This is one form of social participation, helping the government, because of course we cannot do the work alone,” he said. “It’s in line with what our Constitution states; that society can contribute something to education.”

Mansyur said that all of the schools financed by Rumah Zakat Indonesia were registered with the ministry, and added that he hoped more organizations would step forward to help students from low-income families gain access to education.