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)