'Is it worth sacrificing their future?'
The city administration has issued an ultimatum to the effect that the 65 students of the SMP 56 state junior high school in Melawai, South Jakarta, will lose formal academic recognition unless they transfer to other designated schools on Wednesday at the latest. The students of all schools in the city will sit their final exams from June 21 to June 26. The Jakarta Post asked some people for their opinions on the protracted dispute over the controversial land swap deal involving the school.
Razali, 46, is a taxi driver. He lives on Jl. Dewi Sartika, East Jakarta:
As a parent, I wouldn't like to see my children studying in the parking lot instead of in the classroom, as has been happening to the SMP 56 students. I don't understand why the children's parents and teachers insisted on staying in the school building, even though it had been sealed. It was the children who became the victims in the end.
I know from the newspapers that today is the last day for the students to move to other schools if they don't want to lose their legal status as students.
I don't know about idealism and education. The thing is, even if they win, the children's future has been put at stake. And that should not be allowed to happen.
What they should do is to get more people behind them -- organize a pressure group to face down the city administration and the councillors who, I think, should be siding with us, the ordinary people, and not the businesspeople. Just leave the students alone.
Linda, 29, is a journalist with the Berita Kota daily. The mother of one child, she lives with her family in Cijantung, East Jakarta:
I'm very sad to see the students get involved in the dispute. I'm a mother, too. Their main job is to study -- not to take to the streets for rallies. I despise those who have involved them in the dispute, including the people in power who are using the dispute to further their own interests.
It is common knowledge that our education system is very poor. You can imagine what will happen to the students if they cannot even benefit from normal teaching at school. They will have no future.
--The Jakarta Post