Education directorate general deeply embarrassed by student attack

The director general of Middle School Education at the National Education Ministry, Hamid Muhammad, says he is very embarrassed by the recent assault by SMA 6 High School students on several journalists.

The students reportedly assaulted a group of journalists demonstrating peaceful rally in front of their school in South Jakarta on Monday. The journalists were protesting over an earlier incident in which student had seized the cassette tape of a television cameraman who was filming a riot between students of SMA 6 and SMA 70.

According to Hamid, the directorate general was embarrassed because the incident happened close to its headquarters on Jl. Jenderal Sudirman.

"We are deeply embarrassed because schools in the city are supposed to set a good example. Instead, this shows that there is violence, which is completely against the values of education," he said Wednesday as reported by kompas.com.

Hamid added that he had ordered his staff to coordinate with the Jakarta Education Agency to identify the causes of the incident, in addition to schools often involved in inter-school violence.

 "We will handle this in an integrated way," he said.