The challenges grow if schools fail to provide an inclusive education and a safe environment where children’s needs are catered for and where they are protected from bullying. 

Adelia Putri, a 38-year-old homemaker living in Depok, West Java, recounted how her child’s homeroom teacher refused to teach her son who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). She eventually opted for homeschooling after enrolling her son in a public school for his first year of elementary school. 

“The teacher said, ‘I can’t handle your kid. Even if I promote your son to grade two, I do not want to be his homeroom teacher.’ The government did say they were going to make schools inclusive, but still teachers are not ready to accept my kid,” Adel said on Thursday. 

Adel’s son, who is now 9 years old, still fears the idea of going to school, which she said stemmed from his memories of that teacher.

Teachers’ lack of personal attention also causes children with special needs emotional scars as they are left to fend for themselves when they become targets of bullying. 

“Other kids can fight back, my son can’t. [My son] was punched, kicked, all those things. I made reports to the headmaster, to the homeroom teacher. There was no action,” said Eni Purniawati, a 49-year-old mother of three sons with autism, when retelling what happened to her first son in middle school. 

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