'Education is being sacrificed for profit'

'Education is being sacrificed for profit'

The protracted dispute over state middle school SMP 56 in
Melawai, South Jakarta, has triggered various reactions among
residents, including those who believe that the case has been
politicized by a certain party. The Jakarta Post asked a few
people for their thoughts on the case over the controversial land
swap deal involving the school and a property developer.

Henry Wijayanto, 29, is a promotion & sales manager at an
entertainment center in Senayan, Central Jakarta. He lives in
Pondok Bambu, East Jakarta:

It is a regrettable problem. All parties involved in the
dispute must immediately resolve their differences so that the
students can study normally.

I hope the city administration will provide a clear decision
on the academic status of all students who are still studying at
their old school in Melawai.

I think the authorities are sacrificing education to business
in evicting the students by force.

Besides, why does the businessman want to take the land that
has long been home to a school? Can't they find another site?

Japanese freelance journalist, 31 (name withheld by request):

The Ministry of National Education should have realized that a
school is a community unto itself and impossible to relocate
without altering or damaging it, thus rendering the deal unviable
at the outset.

Many small businesses are dependent on and are part of a
school's surrounding community that has formed over many years.

Students have best friends among their peers and establish
bonds with their teachers as surrogate parents. In the case of
SMP 56, many of these ties have been broken as a result of
students being dispersed to other schools.

All of this affects the emotional and mental well-being, as
well as morale, of students and hence, their capacity to focus on
learning -- the timing makes it worse, coming six weeks to the
end of the school year.

The root of the issue is not about the legality of the deal,
but the moral conscience of the ministry as the guardian of
national education.

It has failed miserably in providing a stable and secure
environment of learning to the students and teachers of SMP 56,
yet several parties connected with the case -- including the
National Commission for Child Protection -- have the gall to
profess naively, "we must protect the students; we must remove
them from further involvement".

The ministry embroiled the students the second it approved the
deal.

--The Jakarta Post