The government contributes US$57.1 million – comprising of US$39.1 million from the central government and US$18 million from regional administration.  The remaining will be covered by grants from various donors - US$52 million from the Dutch government, US$61.5 million from IDA and US$24.5 million from IBRD.

National Education Minister Bambang Sudibyo explained about it during the launch of the BERMUTU program – an integrated teachers’ management program in Indonesia – in Jakarta recently, attended by the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Netherlands, Nikolas Van Dam, and World Bank Country Director for Indonesia, Joachim Von Amsberg.

The National Education Minister explained that aside of education development, the BERMUTU program is also concerned with collaboration with other international projects in Indonesia especially with other programs that have been carried out successfully, like Pakem, Lesson Study, Multigrade Teaching and so on. The launch was also witnessed by 75 mayors/regents, rectors of a number of universities and representative of the World Bank in Washington DC, Chris Thomas, through video conference.

The World Bank Country Director for Indonesia, Joachim Von Amsberg, said the BERMUTU program is fully supported by the World Bank and is aimed at improving education quality in Indonesia though teachers’ quality improvement.

”Indonesia has initiated to lead and to develop this program correctly by withdrawing a strategic plan, to overcome the problems in education not in project-by-project-base approached but in an integrated teachers quality management,” he said.

One of the indicators of the achievement of the BERMUTU program implemented in 75 regencies/municipalities is improvement of Indonesian students’ academic performance in three years since 2003. ”In the international assessment on Indonesian Students academic achievement in 2003 Indonesian students’ score in reading capacity, math and sciences literacy was 360; and it has increased by 31 points to391 in 2006,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Ambassador of the Netherlands, Nikolas Van Dam, asserted that poor communities would have no change to live a descent life of they do not have access to education.

”Therefore, we supports the efforts to improve access to education in Indonesia, among others, through the BERMUTU program, which has been deemed quite successful in improving students and teachers’ quality,” he said. (Ati/Ela)-d