YOGYAKARTA - The Indonesian Ombudsman (ORI) Representative of the Special Region of Yogyakarta (DIY) found allegations of the practice of buying and selling school uniforms to new students during the re-registered process at three public schools in this province.
Coordinator of the SPMB ORI DIY 2025 Supervision Team Mohammad Bagus Sasmita said the three schools consisted of one Madrasah Aliyah Negeri (MAN) and two junior high schools in Sleman Regency.
"MAN has one. We will send a team to ask for clarification directly from MAN, while there are two junior high schools," said Bagus as quoted by ANTARA, Monday, July 21.
Regarding the practice of buying and selling uniforms in one of MAN, according to Bagus, his party has coordinated and obtained clarification from the Regional Office of the Ministry of Religion (Kanwil Kemenag) DIY.
From the results of the initial clarification, the Regional Office of the Ministry of Religion stated that it had asked MAN to stop the uniform sale and purchase service, which one package was sold for up to IDR 1.8 million.
"The Ministry of Religion said that it would give a written warning to the head of madrasas and then not to take actions to sell the uniforms or materials," he said.
Meanwhile, reports related to two public junior high schools in Sleman showed that uniform purchase offers were made when re-listing at a price of Rp. 1.5 million for one package.
"Around Rp1.5 million in total. There are 12 items starting from uniforms, then there are ties, belts, and so on," explained Bagus.
Based on the deepening of the ORI DIY team, the school stated that it was ready to return uniforms to the parents of each student and asked to buy independently.
"However, in its development, we received information that the school argued that there was a letter of some kind of request for assistance or a request from the guardian's parents to serve the purchase of school uniforms, it seems that they will still sell uniforms," said Bagus.
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ORI DIY considers such practices to be contrary to a number of regulations, including Permendikbud Number 45 of 2014, Circular of the Minister of Education and Culture, as well as Circular of the Governor of DIY which emphasizes the prohibition of schools from selling or facilitating uniform sales.
"Because of the information we got, in several other schools there are still those who sell uniforms or uniforms," he said.
Bagus said, ORI DIY together with related educational institutions had actually conveyed socialization regarding the ban on such levies before the new student admission process began.
"Schools should already understand, even have memorized this rule. But sometimes schools argue that they help or are asked for help by guardian parents, this is always their reason," he said.
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