Rebuilding education in tsunami-ravaged Aceh

Mochtar Buchori, Jakarta

When will children in Aceh be able to continue their education again?

This is a question that has been troubling many people in the country. To be sure, everyone agrees that educational facilities in the devastated province must be rehabilitated as soon as possible; but everyone familiar with conditions on the field in Aceh agrees that the obstacles hindering such an effort are almost insurmountable. Some people thus wonder whether it is not a bit too early to ask this question.

The question is timely; it might be too early to make a final decision about how education in Aceh should be rebuilt. An erroneous decision or one taken in haste might jeopardize the younger generation's future in their efforts to meet the challenges of life with the full use of their mental and emotional faculties.

In addition, the prevailing tendency to simply restore the old educational system and methods might not be sufficient to raise the children of Aceh into independent and cognizant adults. The vision underlying the current public demand for rebuilding Aceh is for a new Aceh to emerge from its current catastrophe -- one that "will remember nature's lessons long after they might seem irrelevant".

With this perspective in mind, it would be wise to watch ongoing attempts to rebuild education in Aceh as closely as possible and to learn from them.

Operational decisions on Aceh's educational rehabilitation should be made gradually -- it is the basic foundation, the philosophical design, that must be established clearly and definitively from the very beginning.

One possible model appears in a Kompas report on Wednesday, Jan. 5, that in the area of Mata Ie, Aceh Besar district, volunteers of the Baitul Muamalat group conducted a sing-and- learn program -- a form of therapeutic education -- in which at least 120 refugee children took part.

The Jakarta Post reported on the same day a similar activity was conducted by Kak Seto, Chairman of the National Commission for Child Protection, at the Ujong Batee refugee camp just outside Banda Aceh. Fifty children took part in Kak Seto's program, most of whom had lost their parents.

What these two groups have been doing is admittedly not traditional education, and is closer to therapy. In singing and playing as a group, the children are guided by their teacher- therapist to release their anxieties and fears.

No fixed program nor standard curriculum exists for this kind of education. However, these impromptu programs provide "education" in the truest sense of the word: The children are guided in their struggles to come to terms with the hardships they have encountered in their altered lives. These sessions serve to guide them toward accepting the new realities of their lives, and are supported as they set out in search for a new future.

Needless to say, the number of children served by these two volunteer groups is but a tiny fraction of the 60,000 to 70,000 children spread across 95 refugee camps in Aceh who need immediate assistance to resume their studies. It is feared that, without proper education, these thousands of pre-teen to teenaged children will not be able to prevail in facing the tremendous difficulties that lie ahead.

Furthermore, this kind of "emergency" education is only temporary, and it must be replaced with a more conventional form of education.

It is this process of developing and sustaining a format for emergency education, guiding its transition to conventional education, and defining the "final" educational format to be applied in Aceh that requires careful consideration.

In light of this facility, one might ask whether more of these emergency education centers should not be set up before we move on to more conventional schooling. The answer is definitely yes, but again, this should be done with great care.

A clearly defined set of requisite standards must be established in order for such emergency intervention centers can be opened. Putting aside their operational aspects, if their main function is to carry out educational activities that are primarily therapeutic, then the selection of teacher-therapists is of vital importance.

Admittedly, while it would be difficult to find teachers like Kak Seto Mulyadi with formal qualifications, it is possible to find teachers who can quickly pick up the fundamentals of this kind of job.

From my limited experience in working with emotionally distressed students, I would say that such students need a compassionate teacher in whom they can find a friend.

An effective teacher-therapist will provide a feeling of security among traumatized students as they struggle emotionally and psychologically to adjust to their new lives. They want to feel that they are being understood and being guided, and that they are not alone in their painful journey toward an uncertain future.

Opening new emergency centers without screening the quality and character of its teacher-therapists is hazardous to students' academic and personal growth.

The writer has a doctorate of education from Harvard University.