Emmy Fitri

Paying for uniforms and school supplies was a challenge for Basuki, as it is for many students today. (Antara Photo)

Pauper to Professor: Overcoming Adversity in the Education System

While shining shoes is just a way to make ends meet for many across the country, for Basuki Agus Suparno it was one of several menial jobs he took in order to earn enough to make it through school and eventually college.

Born into a poor family in Central Java, the 39-year-old’s rise to become a lecturer of political communications at the National Development University (UPN Veteran) in Yogyakarta is a rare story in an education system where inaccessibility and poverty extinguish many dreams of attaining higher education.

Over the weekend, Basuki became one of less than 50 people to earn a doctorate in communications from the University of Indonesia. Not many are aware though that from a very young age, he had been forced to eke out a living to stay in school and help his family survive.

The eighth of nine children, Basuki’s family moved to Jakarta in 1978 after his father was laid off from a sugar company in Sragen, Central Java.

“With no skills, my father could only get a job as a construction worker with no steady income,” he said.

Eventually registering himself at an elementary school in East Jakarta, he was forced to take a year’s break to learn proper Bahasa Indonesia, because Javanese had been the language of instruction at his school in Sragen.

Basuki recalled that despite their financial situation, his father was insistent on sending all his children to school.

“All of my siblings went to school,” he said. “My parents fed and clothed us, and made us stay in school. The only one who quit junior high was my sister — she wanted to raise a family.”

His father worked tirelessly to make ends meet but died of kidney failure before Basuki finished elementary school. He was then forced to take on odd jobs, from shining shoes to selling plastic bags at traditional markets and newspapers at the side of the road, to support his studies.

Basuki’s story is not uncommon in a country where nearly 45 percent of households live on less than $2 a day, according to World Bank statistics.

Most children from low-income households end up working to earn money to help their families get by instead of attending school, despite the introduction of free education programs by the government.

“Getting an education is not only about paying tuition fees,” Basuki said. “When I was in junior high, I felt inferior to other students because I could not afford textbooks and proper swimwear for the phys ed class.”

Basuki said that he remembered being asked on his first day of school if he had brought money to pay for his new uniform and textbooks.

“I brought some money but it wasn’t enough. I was sent to talk to the school principal who showed me some kindness by allowing me to pay what I could afford,” he said.

When he was in junior high school, Basuki remembers waking up as early as possible to go over to his friend’s house to copy the day’s lessons from his friend’s textbook because he could not afford his own.

He said he reached a turning point in senior high school, where he joined school organizations and met some of the school’s alumni.

“They gave me a new perspective that having a dream is OK — for anyone,” Basuki said. “I wanted to be like them but I knew that nobody would help me pay for my studies.”

“My dream was to study at university and become a doctor,” he added, chuckling to himself.

After graduating in 1990, Basuki applied to a few medical schools but failed to get in.

Dispirited, he took up a job selling newspapers but a year later was accepted into the School of Political Sciences at the state-run Sebelas Maret University in Solo. For six years he sold papers on street corners and on trains to earn enough to achieve his dream of graduating college.

But even though Basuki has realized his dreams, he now feels that it is time to give something back.

“My wife and I have taken in five children from poor families,” he said. “We pay whatever they need for their education. I know many children have potential, but access and lack of funding force them to leave school.”

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