Pupils in West Papua. (Jubi/Doc)
Sentani, Jubi – Jayapura Regency always has the same problem from time to time which is the ban issue. Sometimes, people are not thinking twice when doing blockage whether they banned the public facilities that are applied for common use. It seems becoming a tradition among the local residents to get a blockage as part of resolution of their problems.
For two days (28-29 July), the Elementary School of Christian Foundation (SD YPK) Waibron at Sentani Barat sub-district was banned by a group of people named teacher’s council and school board committee of SD YPK Waibron. They decided to do so because of lack of transparency in the use of School Operational Grant (BOS) by the headmaster.
Head of Elementary Education of Jayapura Learning and Education Office Herald Berhitu said the reason of this blockage has not fully clear, because the headmaster is currently out of Papua escorting her child to study abroad.
“I recently communicated with the headmaster but she is now out of Papua. If there’s problem, it should be coordinated with us. Because this act would only harm the pupils instead of those people,” Berhitu said at his office on Wednesday (29/7/2015).
He further said if it’s about operational fund, he must also get provided with a report of expenditure by school management because each has own responsibility. “Thus, do not use the operational grant as the reason to answer the interest of personal of group while paralyzing the school learning activities because of blockage. So far I knew, when there’s a misuse on operation grant management of this school, I should be informed by the operation grant manager,” he said.
He also admitted to remind the headmasters and school committee members about the use of fund as well as the financial report in every meeting. “I always remind in every meeting that the grant should be used for prosperity but it also the source of conflict. So in the future, I hope the grant management could be done properly while the transparency is also important, so that we could control the use of the grant,” he revealed.
Meanwhile, the Coordinator of school blockage Imanuel Sieb earlier said he was very disappointed on the headmaster who was not being transparent on the use of the grant.
“Operational grant for three years has never been explained to us. This made us think that there are something to be hided from us, the teacher’s council and school board committee,” he said. (Engel Wally/rom)
