Manifestation of Children's Dreams in Central Sumba

Poverty seems to be very familiar with Central Sumba regency, East Nusa Tenggara. To build human capital, the regency administration has started offering scholarships to poor students.

ARSIP PRIBADI

Adelia Lestari Rambu Jola (20) after taking the final exam of Diploma III Dental Care at the Kupang Health Polytechnic, East Nusa Tenggara, Monday (30/5/2022). He is one of the recipients of a scholarship from the Central Sumba Regency Government.

Adelia Lestari Rambu Jola, 20, dashed out of the exam room at the Kupang Health Polytechnic campus in East Nusa Tenggara on Monday (30/5/2022). She hastily took her gadget from her bag, then called her father in the village.

"Dad, I have finished the exam. It went well. The examiner said I could do it," she said with tears in her eyes.

Her father, Bagi Lalu Pada, 50, was unable to speak. The poor farmer, who was working in his garden in Tana Modu village, South Katiku Tana district, Central Sumba regency, only answered with sobs of emotion.

Dad, I have finished the exam. It went well. The examiner said I could do it.

Adelia has just finished taking the final diploma III exam for the Department of Dental Health at the Kupang Health Polytechnic. She finished on time, in six semesters. According to her plan, she will graduate in September 2022 and immediately return to serve in Central Sumba. Dental nurses there are very rare. Data shows the area has less than 10 dental nurses.

Until the day she was declared to have passed the exam, it seemed that Adelia wasn't sure she could get to this point. Why did she feel that way? Because many students in the village and neighboring villages usually drop out of university because their parents can't afford to pay for their education.

KOMPAS/KORNELIS KEWA AMA

Map of Sumba Island, East Nusa Tenggara.

Arda Gratia, 22, another scholarship recipient, said the scholarship had helped support her studies until now.

"Each semester you have to pay a registration fee up to Rp 6 million [US$406.37]. Otherwise, I might not be in university anymore,” said Arda, a midwifery student at a private university in Kupang.

A similar sentiment was conveyed by Umbu Nelson, 21, a student at a private university in Malang, East Java. Nelson is one of 10 children in his family. Several of his brothers and sisters have dropped out of school for financial reasons.

"If there were no scholarships, I would definitely be in the fields [grassland] right now, looking after cows," he said.

In addition to being categorized as the poorest regency in Indonesia, Central Sumba's human development index is also saddening and the region is prone to food disasters. Every year, locusts devour farmers' rice and corn crops entirely. Farmers also rely on rainfed fields. They harvest only once a year.

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Based on data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS), Central Sumba has the highest poverty rate in NTT, as well as in Indonesia. In 2021, the poverty rate there was 34.27 percent, or the equivalent of 25,480 people. The poverty rate in NTT was 20.99 percent and 9.71 percent nationally.

Adelia herself had problems when she entered the third semester of university in 2020. Every semester, she had to pay Rp 2.4 million in university fees, while the rent for her rooming house was Rp 350,000 per month, excluding the cost of food and drink and other necessities. She then had to pay for transportation and additional campus costs, such as books, photocopies, phone credit and unexpected costs.

One afternoon in mid-2020, she was contacted by an employee of the Central Sumba Regency administration and was told that she was one of the recipients of the Scholarship for Poor Children. The scholarship is for paying for university tuition and other needs. She has regularly received the funds every semester since July 2020.

KOMPAS/AHMAD ARIF

A boy leads his horse in the Sumba savanna on (31/7/2016). Livestock is the economic backbone of the people of Sumba, East Nusa Tenggara.

Objective recommendations

Assistant III of the Regional Secretariat of East Sumba Regency, Ferdy Umbu Kabalu Sekda, said the scholarships were intended for children from poor families based on recommendations and followed by field verification.

“We receive the recommendations from the village's religious leaders, such as priests and mosque imams. We believe that religious leaders would be objective,” said Ferdy.

The program, Ferdy added, has become the flagship program of Central Sumba Regent Paulus SK Limu, who has been in office since 2018. Since the program started in 2019, 500 people each year have received scholarships to cover tuition fees from the third semester of university until graduation with a certain limit. For the undergraduate level, for example, until the eighth semester.

The scholarship allocation comes from dividends from the Central Sumba regency administration's shares in Bank NTT and other financing sources. So far, some 2,000 students have received a scholarship of Rp 6 million per person. This means that around Rp 12 billion was needed. The program has the full support of the local legislative council.

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Adelia's father, Bagi Lalu Pada, is grateful for the scholarship. So are many parents in Central Sumba. So far, most of their children only graduate high school at the highest level. After graduating or dropping out of school, many of them choose to get married. Such conditions make it difficult to break the cycle of poverty. Children born to poor families with minimal education will inherit the poverty of their parents.

Scholarships for poor children from the Central Sumba regency administration are like an oasis in the desert. Hopefully, more and more other poor children, such as Adelia, Arda Gratia and Umbu Nelson, will receive scholarships so that they can pursue higher education to realize their dreams of success in life.

This article was translated by Kurniawan Siswo.