Deputy Chair of Commission X Rejects Proposal to Return Schools to Online Learning for Efficiency

Jakarta (ANTARA) - MY Esti Wijayanti, Deputy Chair of Commission X of the Indonesian House of Representatives, has stated that she does not agree with the proposal to resume school learning activities online starting April 2026 as part of the government’s energy-saving policy or efficiency strategy. Learning from the COVID-19 experience, she believes that online learning strategies are less effective for school students. She said that the policy proposal needs to be studied more deeply. “We implemented online learning during the COVID-19 outbreak. And we all know that this system left problems that are not simple for our education system,” said Esti in a written statement received in Jakarta on Monday. The impacts mentioned include challenges in children’s ability to absorb lesson materials, discipline, character formation, technological constraints, and others. “These are problems that are not simple,” said the legislator in charge of education affairs. She explained that one of the impacts of distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic was learning loss, a phenomenon that leads to students becoming lazy in learning and tending to forget about school. The declining cognitive abilities of students following the online learning policy, she said, are evident from several monitoring results on child growth and development in Indonesia. In addition to academic setbacks, such as the learning loss experienced by students, she believes that the distance learning system also has impacts on psychological aspects and children’s physical health. “The online system makes it difficult to implement lessons on affective aspects such as personality, attitudes, and character,” she said. For this reason, she encourages the government to find other solutions to anticipate the impacts of global conditions. She emphasised that children’s education must not be sacrificed as it could cause prolonged impacts. “There must still be the best alternative steps to address economic issues due to the possible rise in oil prices from global world conditions,” she said.