VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought about a great influence towards education in the world, including in Indonesia. To prevent the virus spreading among students and teachers, classes are held online. In Indonesia, the online class or called "PJJ" has been ensuring the learning process continues. 

After one year, the end of the pandemic is still unknown. Meanwhile, online classes have caused some negative impacts. One of which is learning loss that happens across the world. A study found that face-to-face class results in better academic achievement than online classes. Some other impacts are various social issues, such as domestic violence against children. Many students also faced difficulties in joining the online classes. 

A survey by the Education and Culture Ministry's Policy Research Center in 2021 found that being hard to concentrate and limited internet are the greatest issues faced by the students during online classes.

Considering the negative impacts, many students and their parents are waiting for the face-to-face class again. Currently, the Level 3 social restriction allows a limited face-to-face class. President Joko Widodo on Thursday (19/8) as quoted from merdeka.com said that he will allow the face-to-face class if they have been vaccinated.

How do schools respond to this?

Data from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology, some 63 percent of schools in Indonesia can have a limited face-to-face class. But only 26 percent did it. The rest were faced with regional government's permits. Many regions are reluctant to give permits even if their regions are level 3. This reluctance might be because of being careful and every region has different conditions.

Whatever the reason is, the regional government needs to realize the face-to-face class so that the negative impacts will not happen again.

The 26 percent schools that had done it are expected to follow very strict health protocols and the number of students in the classroom must be limited. To ensure this, monitoring by every regional government is necessary.