Melawai students start school

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Having lost their school, the students and teachers of junior high school SMP 56 on Jl. Melawai Raya, South Jakarta, started the first day back at school on Monday by holding a flag-hoisting ceremony in the parking lot of a nearby hotel.

The ceremony in the parking lot, some 50 meters away from their school, began at 7:15 a.m., attended by some 70 out of 95 students, who just got back from their two-week holiday.

Hundreds of public order officers barricaded the school gate, which was sealed off by the city administration on Wednesday.

"We now have no place ... We hope the House of Representatives can help solve our problem," said school principal Nurlela, who was accompanied by teachers, parents and students, while meeting legislators to convey their grievances after the flag-hoisting ceremony.

Some teachers and students had remained at the Melawai school, constructed in the 1930s, to protest a land swap deal made by the education ministry and PT Tata Disantara -- owned by former manpower minister Abdul Latief -- in 2000.

In the deal, PT Tata gave the government a property in Jeruk Purut and another in Bintaro, both in South Jakarta, in exchange for the Melawai premises.

The majority of teachers and students of SMP 56 had agreed to move to Jeruk Purut school.

The Supreme Court is still deciding on the legal status of the school, which is in an area being developed into a business district.

In spite of the fact that it is still embroiled in a dispute and most of the teachers of the school are working on a contractual basis, the school still took in new students this year. The city administration reported Nurlela to the police for allegedly operating an illegal, substandard school.

The administration emptied the school building while the students and teachers were on Idul Fitri holiday. The public order officers, who pitched five tents near the school building, prohibited students, parents and teachers from approaching the school on Monday.

Meanwhile, on the gate of the school building, the City Basic Education Agency placed an announcement, calling on students to re-register themselves to take part in temporary classes in another school.

The classes or "bridging" school should be attended by ex-SMP 56 students before they will be transferred to other city-run junior high schools. A number of officials were seen distributing registration forms to the students.