Students seek out friends

Ruslan Sangadji and Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh

"Amidst the horizon, your faces come across ... In the night of silence, the memory of us remains".

Lines of a poem titled Longing written by a student were highlighted on a student billboard of State High School I Aceh Besar, which is still strewn with debris.

No school staff or students were seen in the area on Monday. There was only an instruction from the Aceh Education Agency written in chalk on a school blackboard ordering teachers and students to return to school on Jan. 20.

The Aceh Education Agency is encouraging schools to reopen on Jan. 26, but many schools in Banda Aceh have already started re- registering their students.

Only 50 of 200 students from State Junior High School I Darul Imarah, Lampeuneurut, Aceh Besar, were seen in the school compound.

UN officials estimate that up to half the 104,000 dead in northern Sumatra are children.

According to headmistress Ainal Mardiah, many of her students lived in the most damaged districts, but she had yet to obtain information on how many of her students died in the disaster.

Ainal gathered the students on Monday and encouraged them to continue study, saying: "We cannot lose hope ... we have to keep coming to school although we are drowned in sadness. God, I hope all my students are alive".

She invited students to come to school on Wednesday for prayers.

Third-grade student Nurul Fajri couldn't hold back her tears. She thinks five of her schoolmates died in the disaster.

"I've checked the whereabouts of my friends at the hospital and refugee camps, but they're not there," she told The Jakarta Post, wiping her tears with her headdress.

Head of the disaster mitigation taskforce in Aceh, Coordinating Minister for Social Welfare Alwi Shihab, who is also heads the disaster mitigation taskforce in Aceh, said that the reopening of schools would be good for the students as it will get them busy. "It will distract the children from their grief by providing them with school activities," he said on Monday.

United Nations Children's Fund coordinator Shannon Strother concurred, saying that getting children back to school was crucial in the early phases of Aceh's rehabilitation process.

"It is our priority to get children back to school," Strother was quoted by AFP as saying.

"At schools, they can regroup and share their experiences with other kids and teachers. It will be a truly healing process."

According to the national education schedule, school students were supposed to take their mid-semester exam on Dec. 27, one day after the natural disaster hit Aceh and North Sumatra. Aceh Education Agency has rescheduled the exam for the end of January.

According to the disaster coordination center based in Banda Aceh, at least 420 schools across the province were swept away by the calamity, and 1,000 teachers were killed.

"The government will try to provide new teachers for Aceh and immediately construct schools," Alwi said.

"Meanwhile, tents can be used as school buildings as well as other public places, like mosques."

Meanwhile, Unicef is sending mobile schools to northern Sumatra, where they're expected to arrive in the coming days. More stories on Pages 2,3,6,7,11,17,18,19 Editorial -- Page 6