New education law unconstitutional, Church official says

The secretary of the National Council of Catholic Education says a new law violates the constitution by not allowing Catholic and other private-run educational foundations to run schools and colleges.

Father Agustinus Suyatno (left), who heads Mardi Yuana Catholic educational foundation in Bogor diocese, West Java, and Maria Siti Wahyuandari, secretary of Bogor’s Catholic Education Council and head of the legal and institutional affairs of Mardi Yuana, at a Jan. 9 forum on the effects of new legislation on educational legal entities that help fund Catholic schools.

“The law does not reflect the 1945 Constitution … which implicitly states that national education progress can be obtained only by the autonomy of schools and independent funding,” Father Agustinus Suyatno told UCA News on Jan. 24.

Lawmakers passed the new legislation on educational legal entities in December, and local media reported on Jan. 23 that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had signed the law into effect. But Father Suyatno maintains the law “is contrary to its basic foundation.”

Citing Article 55(1) of the existing National Education System Law, the priest said religious communities have the right to organize community-based formal and informal schools in line with their religion, culture and social environment. In practice, he said, such schools are generally run by religious or social institutions to help poor people. He added that people demand such schools for their children in many remote areas that lack basic education services.

Father Suyatno also said most community-based education providers follow a cross-subsidy policy, meaning schools that can meet their expenses should subsidize others that cannot, through educational foundations. But the new law changes all that, he continued.

First, he explained, in six years the law will cease to recognize educational foundations, which means funding for schools that cannot run on their own will stop. Second, it “emphasizes uniformity of management,” which he called impractical, arguing that schools run by different religious communities have different emphases and needs.

“Personally and organizationally, I reject the law. We have long experience in carrying out the state´s educational work. But now the lawmakers do not believe us,” Father Suyatno said.

The priest, who heads Mardi Yuana Catholic educational foundation in Bogor diocese, West Java, noted that Catholic educational foundations had rejected the law as a bill. In 2006, his foundation joined the Indonesian bishops´ education commission and several other foundations in filing a petition with the Constitutional Court for a judicial review of the proposed legislation.

END