Saturday-off policy helps students relax, recover

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Every school day, 15-year-old Via wakes up at 4 a.m. to do her homework. But despite rising before the sun, she still doesn't have the time to finish her work before school starts at 7 a.m., forcing her to finish the homework during class.

She is not a lazy student. Via is a freshman at SMA 70 high school in South Jakarta, which since 2001 has had a five-day school week, with classes from 7 a.m. until 2:45 p.m. Students also show up on Saturday mornings for several hours of extracurricular activities.

"Because I take archery after school, I only have 30 minutes left every night to do my homework or to go back over the day's lessons," she told The Jakarta Post on Saturday, taking a break from shopping with her mother.

Despite the busy school days, Via is not complaining because she has more free time to socialize during the weekend. "We can go to the mall or to a friend's house to watch VCDs. But most of the time we just hang out with our families and rest all day."

Many schools in Jakarta, particularly private ones, replaced the six-day school week, during which students attended class from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., after the government permitted schools to implement their own systems and curriculum.

SMA 8 high school was the first state school to change systems after the policy was announced in 1997, followed by SMA 70 high school.

Most of the parents also seem to enjoy the new system.

Ninik, a doctor who works at the Krakatau Steel Hospital in Cilegon, West Java, about a three-hour drive from Jakarta, is also off on Saturdays.

Every Friday evening or Saturday morning she drives to Jakarta to pick up her son Ryan, who lives with his grandmother here. He attends elementary school at the Al-Azhar Foundation in Bintaro, South Jakarta, which has implemented the five-day school week.

"I'm very happy (with the new system) because now I have much more time with my son," she told the Post.

SMA 8 vice principal for public relations, Abd. Rahman Ibrahim, said the school decided to implement the new system after the government cut the workweek for civil servants to five days.

"We made the decision because in the past children tended to excuse themselves from class for extracurricular activities. Moreover, we considered it necessary to extend the children's study hours from 6:45 a.m. to 4 p.m. so they could get through all the curriculum in time," he said.

The new system seems to have made for happier students, and happier students are more likely to be better students.