Embezzlement and Corruption, 10 Thousand New School will be Revitalized in 2025, will it be the same?

School is indeed the second place of learning for children after home, but is this school able to accommodate children with makeshift facilities that are arguably not feasible? Where has the government been all this time? What have they been doing?

Revitalization is a process of rebuilding a plan that previously existed. School revitalization itself was established to build and reorganize schools as educational facilities so that they become a new place for students to gain knowledge by getting a better quality of education. This school revitalization will be carried out in early 2025 with a budget prepared by the government of IDR 17.1 trillion. Revitalization does not only focus on facilities such as tables and chairs, but the revitalization of this school includes curriculum changes, field construction, and the development of teaching staff.

School revitalization, which is planned to be carried out in January, has been a good first step in achieving equality in learning. Although previously the budget for the planned school revitalization was held by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology (Kemendikbud Ristek). However, the budget is now held by the Ministry of Public Works and Housing (PUPR). The budget predicted for the allocation of school revitalization initially amounted to Rp20.3 trillion, said Secretary General, Ministry of Education, Culture and Research, Suharti. Meanwhile, Abdul Mu'ti as the Minister of Education and Culture stated that the budget for school revitalization is Rp17.1 trillion. There are about 10 thousand schools that will be revitalized using the budget. 10 thousand schools is not a small number. Actually, this school revitalization project has been carried out before but experienced many errors, one of the errors faced is the embezzlement of funds and corruption by school or regional officials. Article 31 paragraph (1) of the 1945 Constitution discusses education which has been recognized as an individual right. An example of the embezzlement of funds in 2020, the Head of SMAN 1 Babalan allegedly committed corrupt practices from the school revitalization budget amounting to hundreds of millions. For example, in 2020, the head of SMAN 1 Babalan was suspected of corrupting hundreds of millions of the school revitalization budget. Another example is at SDN Leuwiliang Tasikmalaya, West Java. Many corruptors are running around taking rights that do not belong to them. The lack and carelessness of the government in supervising officials who hold the budget is one of the factors in the large number of corruptors embezzling these funds.

Of course this embezzlement of funds and corruption is very dangerous where they will take the rights and needs of students for their personal interests. And as for what is done so that this incident cannot be repeated again, the government, especially the inspectorate and the school are expected to be firm and professional. Educating the public and reminding officials and workers to stay away from any form of corruption and embezzlement of funds, rejecting bribes whether it is a large or small amount. The school can also tighten the accountability process so that unwanted things do not happen again. Besides that, community participation is also very important, the community can complain when they see these deviant events. They can complain to the authorities.

Putri Anindya Salsabila. H. A student who was born in Merangin on January 04, 2006. Students majoring in International Relations take the International Program (IP) in 2023 at the Islamic University of Indonesia (UII). Taking this topic is due to interest in the world of education that has not been evenly distributed to remote areas. This is corroborated by personal experience when remembering the days of elementary and secondary schools where the facilities were not very capable, English subjects were present and eliminated, and the instability of subjects in remote areas often occurred. Most children around experience delays in understanding English as an important language. so that there is educational inequality between urban areas and remote areas.