Nirma Maima

Master of Public Administration Linkage Class

Enhancing Transparency and Preventing Corruption in School Operational Assistance

( BOS fund)

The way we measure development has changing since a long time ago. Before 1970,
we only used one single economic indicator to measure development rate within one country.
But now, measurement of development is taking account on various dimensions of welfare
that include necessities of life, education, employment etc. Nowadays, rather using a GDP
rate to measure development, UNDP used indicators that related to socioeconomic factor
such as Human Development Index (HDI) (Todaro & Smith, 2011). The measurement of
HDI cover three aspects of development namely health sector (longevity) is measured by life
expectancy at birth indicator, education sector (knowledge) is measured by expected years of
schooling indicator and economic sector (decent living) is measured by GNP per capita
indicator

Based on report released by UNDP in 2019, Indonesia’s HDI rank 111 out of 189
countries in the world, far lacked with its neighbouring countries Malaysia and Thailand
ranked 61 and 77 respectively. In order to catch up development rate, Indonesia government
continuously improve human resource through quality improvement of education sector since
that this sector is one of important component in measurement of HDI. One of measure
conducted by Indonesian government to improve education sector in Indonesia is by
implementing School Operational Assistance (Dana BOS). This program was implemented
since 2005 that targeted to elementary and secondary high school student. This program was
seen as effective way to improve school participation. This was supported by world bank
report which stated that after implementation of BOS in 2005, there was improvement of
poor student’s participation in secondary school around 26 % (worldbank, 2015). It can be
said that this program is effective to improve education sector in Indonesia.

Running for fifteen years, BOS program obviously faced many challenges in the
implementation. One of the biggest challenges is corruption. Big allocation of fund that was
proposed for BOS program was prone to corruption act. Based on audit report from BPK in
the first semester on 2019, mostly BOS fund were not reported accurately due to lack
verification and deserved accountability (media indonesia, 2020). Another misappropriation
was also found in some region such as report was not based on procedure, misconduct of
allocation spending, unappropriated planning, there was no operational procedures, intern
 Nirma Maima
Master of Public Administration Linkage Class

supervisor was not optimal, uncomplete accountability report etc. These activities are
example of lack transparency and accountability that can lead to corruption act.

The use of BOS fund that is prone to corruption must be heavily supervised by many
stakeholders. Society participation should be encouraged to supervised implementation of
BOS in school level from. Report of BOS fund in every school must be accessible to public.
It should not be kept limited to school. The problems of BOS fun in school level happened
because lack of supervision of public on what and how exactly the arrangement of BOS fund
spent. The arrangement of BOS fund usually conducted by Headmaster and school treasury.
While actually the arrangement of this fund must be informed to all stakeholders in school
level. Here, I tried to present transparency aspect that can be emphasized in BOS
arrangement in school level
Encourage public participation
(society, ngo, school
committee, student’s parents,
Planning schools) to organize the
planning of Bos fund in school
level

Involvement all teachers to

Implementation
organize the fund.

BOS fund
Arrangement  instead of using Manual
system, government should
provide a standard
Report computerize system to
enhance transparency and
accountability
 Enhance internal supervisor
(Auditor) to audit Bos fund
report

 Headmaster must made copy

of report to explain what and
how boss fund spent in a year
and report must be
disseminate to all
Evaluation stakeholders (teachers,
student’s parent, committee
etc)
 Headmaster must made
information board about the
use of Boss fund in a year to
inform it to public
Nirma Maima
Master of Public Administration Linkage Class

The problem happened in Bos Fund in school is due to lack participation of

stakeholder (Committee, teachers, NGO, student’s parents etc) in supervising the use of Boss.
Public participation is need to supervised Boss fund together because it is impossible to lean
on internal auditor to supervise all school that accepted Bos fund. Moreover, the manual
system in organizing Bos fund make it less transparent. Government should employ a
computerized system to enhance transparency and accountability.

Reference
media indonesia. (2020, February 10). Sekolah Harus Transparan Kelola Dana BOS.
Retrieved from www.mediaindonesia.com.
Todaro, M. P., & Smith, S. C. (2011). Economic Development. USA: Pearson.
UNDP. (2019). Human Develoment Report. New York: UNDP.
worldbank. (2015, Juni 15). Mengkaji Sepuluh Tahun Bantuan Operasional Sekolah.
Retrieved from www.worldbank.org.