An incident in which seniors allegedly landed a freshman in hospital following a severe beating, served as a wake-up call for parents regarding bullying at schools.
Freshman Ade had walked down a corridor, at state high school SMAN 82 in South Jakarta, dubbed the "Gaza Strip", which only seniors were allowed to use. The school is now investigating three students over the incident. Ade's parents have reported the beating to the police.
University lecturer Suraya, a mother who has two children in high school said she was scared by the state of violence at schools after hearing about Ade's hospitalization.
"Of course as a mother, I became afraid of losing my children. I hear more and more about students being killed at universities, and it's even more troubling when high school students are getting hospitalized.
"It's really sad that the younger generation has to face this."
Suraya, whose children are enrolled at the state high school SMAN 5 said the quality of high school graduates at one school was her concern in choosing a school for her children.
"But a safe and comfortable school is more important. Even if the school is listed among the top schools, if my children die for no good reason there, the school's title wouldn't matter."
Suraya said the first thing she sought in a school was safety, with the second being location; and the third was the school's ranking.
She said that she supported seniority that could bring about positive development for the child, such as creativity and discipline.
"But if seniority negatively impact upon children, I disagree with it."
She said that during the freshman orientation period at SMAN 5, the seniors gave riddles on what the new students needed to bring.
"They told the juniors to bring ackward usus *gut*, which apparently meant susu *milk*," she said, adding that kind of seniority was fine.
Diena Haryana, the chairwoman of Semai Jiwa Amini Foundation (Sejiwa), which champions the war against bullying at schools, urged parents who found that the school they had chosen had any history of bullying, to openly discuss the matter with their children.
"They, for example, should tell their children about the violence they might face in the school," she said over the telephone.
"So when the children agree to enter the school, they are ready to face any bullying threat and know how to survive it."
Diena also urged the parents' association in every school to cooperate with teachers in monitoring student activities, especially extracurricular or outdoor ones, to prevent bullying from occurring.
Sejiwa, which was founded in 2004, has held workshops on bullying prevention in at least 200 schools nationwide.
Meanwhile, head of the city's Education Agency, Taufik Yudi Mulyanto, said he left the bullying problems to schools.
"We trust schools to handle this *bullying problem*. I suggested that they handle it by carrying out the regulations," he said, adding students would be protected by the school' rules.
"Students and parents have a guide book on rules. If something wrong happens, it has to be resolved by the school management."
Taufik said his agency could not address the problem because such action would interfere with the school's authority.
He said students should be given basic knowledge on attitudes, character and manners to prevent them from bullying their peers.
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