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senior official at the Education Ministry revealed on Friday that Education and Culture Minister Mohammad Nuh would sign a decree on the temporary closure of the Jakarta International School'€™s (JIS) kindergarten on Tuesday until the school met all requirements from the ministry. The unlicensed kindergarten has been given a one-week deadline to process its permit.

The sexual assault of a 6-year-old pupil '€” allegedly by outsourced cleaners at JIS in South Jakarta '€” sparked public outrage because it happened in a school famous for its super-tight security. The parents of the victim have accused the private school of trying to cover up the crime for the sake of its reputation.

The lawyers of the parents'€™ victim threatened to sue the school. They argued the school should be fully responsible for the crime, even though it was carried out by employees of an outsourced company '€” the cleaning service company ISS Indonesia.

Speaking to reporters after meeting with ministry director-general for early education Lydia Freyani Hawadi, the school head, Tim Carr, promised JIS would fully cooperate with the ministry and police to bring all perpetrators to justice and to ensure the crime never reoccurs.

Public anger was driven by the thought that if such a crime could happen in such a tightly secured international school, perhaps more sexual assaults could be taking place in other schools.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on Friday that the rape shocked the expatriate community and prompted a discussion in Indonesia about the prevalence of child sex abuse.

According to the Australian media, the boy, who turned 6 last week, contracted herpes and a bacterial infection allegedly as a result of two anal rapes by the suspects in February and March.

The school was founded by United Nations workers in 1951 and was named JIS in 1978. On its official website, it is stated that '€œJIS is known the world over as an accomplished school, one that has weathered many storms and emerged as a positive, multicultural and innovative learning environment.'€

We all hope that the learning and teaching process at the school will not be affected by the alleged sexual assault. For sure, the teachers and staff at the school will continue to give their best to educate the students that have been entrusted to them by parents.

Meanwhile, this newspaper reported the arrest of pedophile suspect Tjandra Adi Gunawan in Surabaya. National Police special economic crimes director Brig. Gen. Arief Sulistyanto announced on Wednesday that the 37-year old company manager and part-time lecturer had created a fake Facebook account to deceive victims.

'€œHe [Tjandra] created a Facebook account pretending to be a female doctor who gave free sexual health consultations,'€ Arief said.

Many children were lured to communicate with him and six of them fell into his trap. He asked them to take pictures of their naked bodies and close ups of their private parts. Some of them even agreed to take their own pictures while masturbating.

Tjandra then uploaded their pictures on the popular online forum Kaskus, Facebook and a pedophile chat room. The police seized 10,236 child pornographic pictures from him.

He is facing a maximum sentence of 12 years'€™ imprisonment and a Rp 6 billion (US$525,219 fine). He will be charged under the 2008 Electronic Information and Transactions Law and the 2009 Pornography Law.

'€œSome parents give gadgets to their children without educating them about Internet safety. On the other hand, schools teach their students to find information on the Internet but do not remind them to be careful and not to chat with strangers online,'€ said Information and Communication Technology Watch (ICT Watch) activist Donny BU.

In the meantime, as of Saturday, hundreds of passengers of a capsized ferry in South Korea were still missing. The Sewol ferry, carrying 462 passengers, capsized on Wednesday morning. Hopes of finding more survivors are fading as the ship sunk on Friday. Among the passengers were 236 students from Danwon High School near Seoul who were on a field trip to popular Jeju Island, located just about 100 kilometers south of the Korean Peninsula.

Prosecutors were seeking an arrest warrant for the ferry'€™s captain, Lee Jun-seok, 69, on Friday, as he was among the first crew members to jump to safety when the ship was capsizing. A captain is supposed to be the last person to leave a ship during a sea accident. He was also suspected of ordering another crew member to steer the ship when the accident occurred.

The obedience of the passengers to follow the instruction to stay put, even though they were in great danger, was likely among the reasons for the high number of missing people.

The school'€™s deputy head, Kang Ming-gyu, was found hanging near a hall where the families of the missing passengers were gathering. Police suspected that Ming-gyu committed suicide. He escaped from the sinking ship but apparently felt guilty because he left his students behind.

Meanwhile, the chances of finding the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 are waning. A multinational operation consisting of 14 planes and 11 ships has been searching a 62,000 square-kilometer area of sea about 2,200 km northwest of Perth.

The Boeing 777, with 239 passengers and crew on board, disappeared on March 8 en route to Beijing.

'€” Kornelius Purba