Flood 'Memories' When Students In Jakarta Begin To Return To School

Illustration of school-age children who are victims of the Jabodetabek flood (irfan Meidianto / VOI)

JAKARTA - The semester holidays for school students in Jakarta have ended. All students, starting from SD, SMP / equivalent, and SMA / equivalent are returning to school starting today.

In his remarks read at a ceremony at each school this morning, Head of the DKI Jakarta Education Agency, Syaefuloh Hidayat, wanted students to remember the Jakarta floods that occurred in early 2020.

Syaefuloh said, the rainfall in Jakarta a few days ago was the highest since hundreds of years ago.

"My children, the students I love and I am proud of, at the beginning of 2020 we are faced with very unexpected things. Jakarta has been rained very heavily, for the first time in 154 years, Jakarta has received the highest rainfall, which is around 377. mm / day, "said Syaefuloh, Monday, January 6.

During the flood period, Syaefuloh claimed that the DKI Jakarta Provincial Government acted quickly in dealing with the floods that hit Jakarta. Handling this by providing refugee bags, supplies of foodstuffs and medicines to help residents affected by flooding.

To all education personnel and parents of students, Syaefuloh reminded him that flooding is a problem that often hits Jakarta. This is admittedly a challenge in itself for the DKI Jakarta Provincial Government, both in terms of handling and prevention such as river normalization.

Syaefuloh said, the DKI Jakarta Provincial Government is doing the arrangement of 13 riverbanks or rivers, revitalizing 109 setsu, lakes, reservoirs and reservoirs in Jakarta. Rehabilitation of drains is also carried out in stages.

In addition, Syaefuloh asked all students and education staff to maintain the quality of the school environment.

"If our school environment is clean, then we will feel comfortable doing teaching and learning activities and of course far from various diseases," he said.

For information, 211 out of 2,800 schools in Jakarta were submerged during the floods that hit the Jabodetabek and Banten areas earlier this year.

DKI Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan believes all schools have been cleaned of the remaining mud and can be used when entering the second semester of the 2019/2020 school year. Although, he understands that not all classrooms can be used when he first enters school.

"Insyaallah 211 schools are clean. On Monday it can be used, maybe not optimal. There will be an arrangement because the number of classes is still in the cleaning process. The principal will arrange it according to the situation," explained Anies, Sunday, January 5.