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Savings Box for SBM
You can find an interesting innovation at SD Sukapura 1 where there is a simple class savings box, which is divided into sections, has a holes to put in money and is numbered according the register of pupils in class IV.
Each day the children voluntarily set aside a small part of the money they bring to buy snacks. The box is locked and the key is kept by one of the children who has been chosen as treasurer. When the class needs money, far example to buy books, make teaching aids or add to the classroom displays, they have a class discussion to agree on whether to use money from the savings box.
The children are going to keep this savings box in operation until they finish primary school and any money left will be given to back to them to help them in secondary school.
Wow!! That’s an interesting idea, a savings box!... besides training them to manage money, it trains them to discuss and take collective decisions, trains their creativity in drawing up their educational needs and trains the children to prepare for their education after they finish primary school.
If one ‘savings box’ can support SBM, how many of school and class needs could be covered by thousands of savings boxes?????.....
Building a School Hall
SLTP 1 Sukapura is building a school hall with the help of the local community. One classroom block, which consists of three rooms is being turned into a meeting hall. The height of the roof is being raised and the outside renovated. The work has already been underway for a year.
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Ibu Suprayogiati, Grade 1 teacher at SD Sukapura 1 helping children to write about their everyday acitvities.
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Example of a Grade 1 pupil’s writing at
SD Sukapura 1.
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A Problem of Planning
SLTPN Sukapura 2 was built in 1998 using funds from the national budget. It is a type C building with nine classrooms. But at the moment it only has 86 students, even though it has been in existence for nearly five years. There are four class groups. The school principal told us that the school has often gone out into the community to find additional students, but even if every eligible student attended school they still could not possibly fill more than six rooms!
He also told us that many of the children in outlying villages in the mountains have difficulty getting to school. As a result many do not continue their education to junior secondary school. He said it would have been better to have built three buildings in three separate villages, each consisting of three classrooms, two of them to act as branch schools of the main school, so that the teachers could move around to meet the students, instead of the students having long journeys to school.
As a postscript: we heard that another junior secondary school is currently being built in a nearby village – 20 minutes away on foot. It would be much better to check needs first and consult with local communities before going ahead and building a school!
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