Submitted by sep_admin on Fri, 2017-02-17 23:46
The BOS (Bantuan Operasional Sekolah - School Operational Assistance) is the Indonesian Ministry of National Education's flagship school grant program, and it is supported by the World Bank's BOS-KITA (Knowledge Improvement for Transparency and Accountability) Project. Schools across the country receive quarterly grants for operational expenses, based on the number of students in the school. Starting in 2009, a team of 14 regional independent monitors (RIM) has visited more than 2,000 schools across 73 districts and 33 provinces in Indonesia to check how the BOS Program is working. Fielded by the World Bank under the BOS-KITA Project and funded by a grant from the Royal Netherlands Government, this team has brought new data and insights to inform BOS Program management and the government. The independent monitors found that 97 percent of BOS funds are used in accordance with the BOS manual, though close to 30 percent of BOS funding is still being used for teacher honoraria. The majority of schools receive the correct amount of BOS funds based on school enrollment figures. Transparency is increasing, and schools are now more frequently sharing their budgets with the school community. The 2011 series of training for schools and school committees needs to emphasize the role of school committees in monitoring fund use.