Conditions of education in Papua have not shown significant progresses although the province had been given special autonomy back in 2001.
The great amount of special autonomy funds have not been followed with improved quality of education, infrastructure, economy, and health. The poor condition of education has impacted seriously on the regional development performance.
This emerged in a dialogue titled Building Synergy between UGM, Regional Government, and Private Sector for Human Resource and Natural Resource on Saturday (3/2) in Swiss BelHotel, Sorong.
Chairman of UGM Papua Task Unit, Drs. Bambang Purwoko, M.A., said the human development index in Papua and West Papua provinces was the lowest compared to other Indonesian provinces.
“The human development index in Papua is low because there are many impoverished people, high illiteracy rate, and low health level,” he said.
Bambang said education development in Papua could not be run as normally as practised in other provinces. So, there should be special acceleration programme to catch up with others.
Bambang explained since 2013 UGM had developed education sector by sending up to 190 teachers to remote areas of Papua, which were 8 districts in Puncak, 5 districts in Intan Jaya, and 2 districts in Mappi. UGM also did a study of the effectivity of boarding school and regional master plan.
“UGM would continue to collaborate with and accept suggestions to make Papua more peaceful, healthy, smart, and prosperous,” he said.
Regent of Tambrauw, Gabriel Asem, S.E., M.Si., said Papua and West Papua were still facing problems such as high poverty rate, low human development index, low income per capita, and low human resource.
The Regent said Tambrauw regency’s human development index, 50.53 point, was still below the minimum standard, while the regency also has limited resources in government, education, and health areas.
“We hope the UGM would be able to find solution to the limited human resource and other problems,” he said.
Rector of UGM, Prof.Ir.Panut Mulyono, M.Eng., D.Eng., said UGM would continue to encourage developments in Indonesia, including Papua. Therefore, UGM always opens itself for cooperation to develop Papua in terms of education, human resource development, and government affairs assistance and other sectors.