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Mixed feelings as schools reopen under pandemic cloud
After the government's incessant push for classroom learning to alleviate learning loss, schools in 69 regencies and cities across Java are welcoming students back to class this week, although parents still fear for their children's safety.
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A student shows her COVID-19 vaccination card at state high school SMA 20 Jakarta on July 1, 2021. The Health Ministry has allowed students between the age of 12 to 17 to participate in the COVID-19 vaccination drive starting July 1. (Antara/Indrianto Eko Suwarso)
E
xcited students headed back to school this week for classroom learning amid easing COVID-19 restrictions in Jakarta and most of Java, but they are doing so at the persistently high risk of exposure to the Delta strain of the virus.
Last week, the government insisted there was “no other option” but to reopen schools after it started relaxing multitiered community activity restrictions (PPKM).
Thousands of schools across the country's most populous island reopened on Monday, including 610 schools in Jakarta, after provincial administrations greenlit the resumption of blended-learning trials that started in April.
The trials are a combination of both classroom and online learning, which offer some leeway for concerned parents still unwilling to let their children go to school in person.
In the capital, the Jakarta Education Agency has opted to allow schools to reopen only when they have all their teachers fully inoculated first, even though Education, Culture, Research and Technology Minister Nadiem Makarim has said that vaccinations are not a requirement.
According to the agency’s data, some 85 percent of all teachers in Jakarta have been vaccinated against COVID-19, as are 94 percent of students ages 12 to 17.
The decision to send students back to school amid low levels of vaccination coverage nationwide remains a pebble in the shoe of officials and education experts alike, as the country must either face a prolonged health crisis or contend with possible learning loss, after initial studies found that online learning was less effective than teaching in person.
