2.8 Percent Of Schools Become COVID-19 Clusters, Nadiem: It's All Not When PTM Happens

Mendikbudristek Nadiem Makarim (Screenshot of the Presidential Secretariat Youtube)

JAKARTA - The Minister of Education, Culture, Research and Technology (Mendikbudristek) Nadiem Makarim emphasized that the figure of 2.8 percent of schools becoming a busy COVID-19 cluster that was in the spotlight was the data during the pandemic that occurred in the country, not during face-to-face learning (PTM).

"There are some misconceptions that the 2.8 percent education unit figure, although small, is cumulative data, not one month's data. So that's all from the entire COVID-19 period, not the last month PTM occurred", Nadiem said in a press conference broadcast online on the Presidential Secretariat's YouTube, Monday, September 27th.

He also emphasized that this figure does not only come from schools that have held limited PTM but also from schools that are still conducting distance learning (PJJ).

Furthermore, he also clarified his ministry's research data which stated that there were 15,000 students and 7,000 teachers exposed to COVID-19. According to Nadiem, the data is raw data where there are still many errors in it.

"For example, many who reported the number of positive COVID-19 cases exceeded the number of students in their schools", he said.

So, going forward, the Ministry of Education and Culture asks all parties to use data from the Ministry of Health because it has gone through various improvements from existing sources.

"So we focus on the existing data, especially data from the Ministry of Health which has obtained various kinds of test results and sampling", said the former CEO of Gojek Indonesia.

Previously, Minister of Health, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, ensured that COVID-19 remained under control and denied that there were new clusters of distribution after schools carried out face-to-face learning (PTM).

"So yesterday there were a lot of discussions or there were a lot of clusters circulating, that's actually not the case. We convey the data transparently", Budi said at a press conference after holding a limited meeting with President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) which was broadcast on the State Secretariat's YouTube, Monday, September 27.

He ensured that his party continued to carry out surveillance strategies or 3T, namely testing, tracing, and treatment to detect the spread of the virus, especially in teaching and learning activities.

The former Deputy Minister of BUMN then explained that surveillance was carried out by taking samples or samples from several schools that carried out PTM. "From the 10 percent, we divide the allocation based on the sub-districts. So, which sub-district has more schools, it will automatically have more schools", said Budi.