Students still staying away from campus

Despite the shrinking danger zone and the city declared safe, students are reluctant to return to Yogyakarta with only a few attending classes.

Academic activities, which were suspended due to the eruptions that killed more than 300 people, resumed on Nov. 13.

Gadjah Mada University’s (UGM) public relations officer Suryo Baskoro said class activities were abnormal this week because many students had not yet returned to Yogyakarta.

“We teach by correspondence through our IT [information technology] system,” Suryo told The Jakarta Post.

Through the program, he added, the students could still follow the subjects from their respective homes and continue studying on campus once classroom sessions operated as per usual.

Following days of eruptions starting on Oct. 26, many UGM students, including about 400 students from Malaysia, left their homes.

“The embassy confirmed no students have returned. We are reassuring them that Yogyakarta is safe now,” Suryo said.

Some students opted to stay in the area to undertake voluntary work at refugee evacuation centers.

With many yet to return, mid-semester tests that had initially been scheduled from Nov. 1-7 were postponed.

“We are now rescheduling the tests,” Suryo said.

He expected activities would be conducted as normal by next week.

No lecturing activities were conducted at Indonesian Islamic University (UII) Yogyakarta campus compound on Jl. Kaliurang, which is located less than 20 kilometers from the crater of Merapi.

The eruptions forced the campus authority to move activities elsewhere.

“All the operational work is still conducted at our Condong Catur campus, Sleman,” lecturer Sarwidi said.

To help maintain lectures, the university conducts online classes through its website, http://klasiber.uii.ac.id.

Sarwidi said the Kaliurang campus would be fully opened next week for lectures.

In another corner of the city, study has returned to normal as campus activities have resumed at Yogyakarta Muhammadiyah University (UMY), some 30 kilometers from the peak of Merapi.

The university public relations officer Novi Diana Fauzie said lectures had been running to schedule again at the campus although a few students requested exemption from attending classes.

Following the eruptions, many of the parents called their children home from school.

Although classes are back to normal, some 900 of its school of medicine students are not attending lectures because they are being deployed at refugee evacuation centers to assist with medical treatment.

“We will withdraw them only after the condition of the refugees stabilizes,” she said.

Although the danger zone has been loosened, alert status is still imposed on Merapi. The authority has even extended the emergency response period, which was initially scheduled to end on Wednesday, for another two weeks.

Sleman refugee and disaster management executing unit commander Widi Sutikno said there were currently about 30,000 refugees that still needed logistics supplies. “If the emergency response period ended they would receive no more supplies,” he said.

This, he added, would be difficult at a time when refugees could not return to their villages, which have been devastated by the eruptions.