A Number Of Educational Issues To Pay Attention To During The COVID-19 Pandemic

Classroom illustration (Angga Nugraha / VOI)

JAKARTA - Chairman of Commission X DPR RI Syaiful Huda said Indonesia is now facing an education emergency situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He even said that due to the pandemic, many private schools collapsed due to difficulties in operating money.

"Many private schools have collapsed. Of the thousands of schools, many have collapsed because their parents cannot pay tuition fees and so on," said Syaiful in a discussion event broadcast on YouTube, Saturday, June 27.

Another problem faced by the education sector is the ineffectiveness of distance learning.

According to him, although the Ministry of Education and Culture (Kemendikbud) has adopted a policy of red, orange, and yellow zones not to carry out learning activities in schools, problems still arise.

The reason is, until now the Ministry of Education and Culture has not prepared a curriculum adaptation in the midst of a pandemic. So that not all schools can organize distance learning.

In addition, many of the affected students' parents were also unable to meet the credit and quota needs for distance learning. So this certainly has an impact on educational activities.

"I call this objective condition an educator emergency in Indonesia. There is a big risk associated with this," he said.

Syaiful also revealed that many children who have graduated from high school (SMA) have difficulty continuing to higher education due to economic problems.

So, he said, the Indonesian Parliament continued to encourage the Ministry of Education and Culture to take further steps in this regard. "The state must be present how Indonesian young people can continue their studies on campus," he said.