TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
City to close schools during Asian Games to ease traffic
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Asian Games decorations near Semanggi Overpass in South Jakarta, Oct. 26, 2017. (JP/Seto Wardhana.)
I
n a bid to ease traffic congestion in the capital during the 2018 Asian Games, set to be held from Aug. 18 to Sept. 2, the Jakarta administration has decided to close all schools for nine days during weekdays.
“The Jakarta Education Agency is ready to support the Asian Games. Hence, we have decided to close not only several schools in Jakarta, but all of them,” the agency’s head Sopan Adrianto said during an Asian Games preparation meeting on Friday.
Previously, Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan considered closing schools near the Asian Games venues — the Gelora Bung Karno sporting Complex in Senayan, Central Jakarta, and the velodrome and equestrian center in Rawamangun and Pulo Mas, East Jakarta — to mitigate the expected heavy traffic congestion.
Sopan, however, said that closing only some schools would have been troublesome for the agency, so it was decided that all schools, both state and private, would be closed.
The closure will not, however, impact the students' effective learning hours, as regulated by the Education Ministry, as the education agency planned to cut the student’s holidays in December.
“We shifted the holiday schedule from December [to August],” Sopan said.
