Project News

Year 2011 marked both the end of JICA's financial assistance to PSBM activities and the beginning of PELITA mandiri by Serang district, Serang ciy and Pandeglang district. The three KITs' (District/Ciry Implementation Team) commitment and eagerness to continue PSBM are at similar levels but their achievement in terms of secured APBD budget (local government's budget) differs. It is natural and expected that once PSBM depends its budget solely on APBD, not only its amount but applicable regulations as well start to differ among the three, reflecting the differences in policy and practice of the respective local governments and Education Office. One of differences revolves the issue whether or not MTs can be covered with APBD.

PELITA team has discussed how to response the issue with MORA. It is first ever expenditure of block grant for 24 selected private MTs in the three district/city by Kanwil (MORA's provincial office) in 2011.

Kanwil in Banten Province made their own guideline in implementing the program. 24 MTs questioned about some differences especially about financial matters, which were caused by APBN (national budget)'s character although the implementation rules are almost same as that of PSBM guideline. The guideline gave some discretion on distric and city's religious office and it invited confusion over who had responsibility for which roles. Kanwil's team and PELITA team will have a discussion about how to implement the program in 2012.

We hope that MORA will further step up this new scheme in FY2012 to make it possible for more MTs to continue bottom-up planning and participating in TPK activities.