School holiday 'to go ahead'

School holiday 'to go ahead'

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of National Education Yahya Muhaimin
insisted on Thursday that the planned 38-day school holiday
lasting from December to the second week of January would proceed
as planned in a bid to train students to be tolerant and practice
their religion.

"I believed that the students, in this case Muslim students,
have to take advantage of the holiday to fully comprehend their
religious teachings and have better interaction with their
parents," Yahya said.

"This also goes for non-Muslim students as they can learn to
be tolerant toward their fellow Muslim students," he said during
the opening of a national meeting between his ministry and the
Ministry of Religious Affairs.

The meeting focused on student activities during the month of
Ramadhan, the minimum quality of education and the academic
calendar.

The ministry recently unveiled an academic calender which
suspends formal academic activities from Dec. 1 to Jan. 6. The
holiday is in conjunction with the month-long Ramadhan fasting
month, Christmas, Idul Fitri and New Year's holidays.

But critics have contended that the ministry is merely bowing
to pressure from Islamic parties and that there is no need to
disrupt academic activities by giving such a long holiday.

Yahya dismissed these allegations on Thursday, contending that
in previous years when students did not have a long vacation the
quality of human resources was still just as low. Thus, he
contended, the extended holiday made no difference.

"There is no correlation between giving a month's holiday with
the drop in learning hours".

He also dismissed claims that there were political motives
behind the policy.

"There are parents who are too lazy to take care of their
children during the fasting month because they don't know how to
fill the holiday time with positive activities ... So there's
nothing political about it," he said in response to the claim.

Separately, the head of the Jakarta office of the education
ministry, Alwi Nurdin, said that even with the long holiday there
was still between 245 and 250 effective school days.

"As long as the school days are not less than required, there
is no problem," he said.

Private schools, he added, could conduct extra curricular
activities during the period if they so wished. (edt/lup)