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MK 27 state vocational school in Pasar Baru, Central Jakarta, is set to advance to the national healthy school competition in June, where it will represent Jakarta after winning the competition at the municipal and provincial levels.

Ahead of the jury assessment on June 11, the school management was busy pruning its plants, workers were placing finishing touches here and there, while students dusted off hundreds of trophies collected by the school over the years.

'€œThis will be our first participation in the national healthy school competition. Previously, we only won at the municipal level,'€ school principal Sri Nuryati told The Jakarta Post at her office recently.

Last year, the annual competition, held by the Health Ministry and then Education and Culture Ministry, involved 83 schools from all levels and from 22 provinces.

The school compound, located on a 1.5-hectare plot of land, has a spacious park with big trees that host a number of extracurricular activities, a herbal farm and a compost facility. Each classroom is designed with big windows, encouraging the circulation of air so the school can save on the use of air conditioners.

Sri said the school management used the Rp 11 million cash prize from the provincial competition to purchase more trees.

'€œPak Ahok visited our school after we won the provincial competition recently and planted the rare Menteng tree. It'€™s an honor for us,'€ she said, referring to Governor Basuki'€Ahok'€ Tjahaja Purnama.

Apart from its lush, clean compound, Sri, who has led the school since 2014, has introduced a number of policies supporting green and healthy lifestyles among students and teachers.

For example, last year the school management teamed up with the city'€™s Food and Drugs Monitoring Agency to inspect food vendors at the school canteen. Students are also encouraged to bring their own tumbler and lunch box to reduce plastic waste.

'€œWe also manage our waste by separating organic and non-organic waste,'€ she cited.

Changing old habits was quite a challenge, Sri admitted.

'€œMost of our students come from families with low income, so it is not always easy to encourage them to adopt a certain lifestyle. We started from simple chores, such as washing hands regularly and separating waste and we expect that the students will take the habits home,'€ she said.

However, Sri believed it was not the policies or clean environment that granted the school the prestigious title of healthiest school in Jakarta.

'€œIt was the involvement of students that contributed the most points for us. We involve students in managing waste, herbal farms and compost, as well as UKS [the school health unit] under the supervision of teachers,'€ she said.

Cynthia, a student, said the school held a biweekly cleaning community service known as kerja bakti, every Friday.

Rizki Ramadhan, another student, said students also monitored the school'€™s sanitation.

'€œOne of our extracurricular units is the environmental unit, comprising 25 students. We must monitor different areas of the school regularly and remind the person in charge of a particular area if it is found unclean,'€ the 16-year-old student explained.

Rizki added that he did not expect much from his school'€™s participation in the national competition.

'€œI just hope my school will become more popular among Jakarta'€™s residents,'€ he said.