Studying In Class Is Important, But Don't Make Clusters

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JAKARTA - Deputy Chairperson of the MPR RI Lestari Moerdijat asked the government to immediately conduct a thorough evaluation of the implementation of Face-to-face Learning (PTM) which has caused clusters of COVID-19 spread.

He considered that PTM should be prepared carefully, in order to suppress the potential for new clusters to occur during its implementation.

"A comprehensive evaluation must immediately be carried out on the implementation of PTM which causes the COVID-19 cluster. The safety factor for students and teaching staff must be prioritized in PTM," said Lestari Moerdijat or Rerie in a written statement, Friday, September 24.

Rerie said this was to comment on data from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology (Kemendikbudristek) which released facts from 46,500 PTM-organizing schools, there were 2.8 percent or 1,296 schools that reported COVID-19 clusters.

Rerie assessed that a thorough evaluation of the thousands of new clusters must be carried out, so that it is immediately known for certain the problems faced by a number of regions in the implementation of PTM during the pandemic.

"Face-to-face learning is indeed expected to be able to reduce the threat of 'learning loss' to students. However, if the conditions in a number of regions are not ready to hold PTM, do not force it, because it threatens the safety of students and teachers," he said.

He said that the emergence of thousands of PTM clusters spread across a number of areas was allegedly due to the uneven readiness of education providers in a number of regions in organizing PTM.

Rerie regretted the occurrence of thousands of new clusters of the spread of COVID-19 which caused students and teachers to be exposed to COVID-19.

He hopes that the steps to temporarily stop PTM after the emergence of a new COVID-19 cluster will be implemented immediately, and be followed by massive testing and tracing efforts to prevent the virus from spreading more widely.

"Education providers must prepare a system that can ensure that students and teaching staff are really healthy and not exposed to the virus, before carrying out PTM. And the requirements have been vaccinated against COVID-19 that must be met by students and teaching staff," he said again. .

The member of Commission X of the Indonesian House of Representatives assessed that during the pandemic, the community must immediately familiarize themselves with new norms in carrying out various activities through fulfilling a number of requirements that have been set by stakeholders.

According to him, the compliance of all elements of society to a number of rules that have been set must continue to be improved, so that they can continue to carry out activities and live side by side with COVID-19 in a safe and controlled manner.

"PTM during the pandemic is a challenge for all children of the nation in practicing national values, such as mutual cooperation, unity, self-sacrifice and love for the country, which have been inherited by the nation's founders," he said.

Therefore, Rerie considered that without a strong commitment from all levels of society in complying with every stipulated regulation, the implementation of PTM during the pandemic would be far from successful.