A 'campus' for Indon kids here
Kota Kinabalu: Plans are afoot to
build a permanent school at a two-acre site at the Kota Kinabalu
Industrial Park (KKIP) in Sepanggar to serve as the education
headquarters for Indonesian children in the State.

This means
that except for Filipino children who are prone to ending up as street
kids and left to the generosity of Malaysian taxpayers, including their
upkeep at detention centres, Indonesian children have a proper place to
gain knowledge and skills.

Acting Consul-General Rudhito
Widagdo said, Tuesday, they are determined to purchase the State land
and relocate from the present Sekolah Indonesia Kota Kinabalu (SIKK) in
Alamesra near 1Borneo.

He said the plan augurs well with their
aim of ensuring no Indonesian children are deprived of formal education
as provided for in the Indonesian Constitution.

"Our application to purchase the identified land is under process É we submitted it to the relevant authority last year.

"Actually
we need between five and seven acres for the proposed project but we
decided to go for two acres initially to house students of primary and
secondary classes. The proposed school would be bigger than the present
one in Alamesra as it would accommodate between 500 and 600 students,"
Rudhito said.

Towards this end he called for the State
Government's full cooperation to help them bring to fruition a
permanent school at KKIP. Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman has been
attentive to the Consulate's aspiration of providing free formal
education to children of its countrymen in Sabah, he said.

He
said this to Daily Express at the opening of SIKK, here, Tuesday, by
Secretary of Directorate General of the Management for Primary and
Secondary Education under the Indonesia Ministry of National Education,
Bambang Indriyanto. The school started operating on Dec. 1.

Rudhito
said the present location of SIKK in Alamesra along Jalan UMS-Sulaman
is only a temporary premises that houses 215 primary pupils from Years
1-6 and six teachers.

"The school here is built only for our
countrymen to ensure they procure proper education while their parents
are working in Sabah. We are renting the present premises for two years
for RM9,800 a year.

"We provide education to Indonesian
children residing around here, charging no school fees and giving them
free textbooks and school uniforms," he said.

Rudhito said the
pupils would be taught according to the Indonesian education syllabus
and that a subject on local customs, culture and law would also be
included so that they would have better understanding of the people's
lifestyle here.

According to him, only 25 per cent of the
total 24,199 Indonesian children in Sabah are provided formal education
either from international Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) or
other quarters that run learning centres in plantations and estates.

"Out
of the total, 6,175 Indonesian children in Lahad Datu are given proper
education at a learning centre actively run by Borneo Child Aid Society
or Humana for children of foreign workers, including from the
Philippines.

"We have sent 109 Indonesian teachers to teach the children using the Malaysian education syllabus.

"There
are also study groups operating in community halls covering about 800
Indonesian children here, Penampang, and Keningau," he said.

Considering
many Indonesian children have yet to get the formal education, Rudhito
said they have a long-term plan to build more schools for them in Lahad
Datu, Sandakan and Tawau as well as other areas that have quite a
number of Indonesian children