One of the most alarming aspects of Indonesia’s smoking epidemic are the incredibly high rates of underage smoking, caused in part by tobacco companies systematically targeting children with advertisements compounded by a culture of permissiveness that doesn’t see kids puffing away on cigarettes as a big problem (villagers allegedly gave Indonesia’s infamous smoking baby money for cigarettes because they thought he was “cute and funny”).
The above photo of two students at PGI 38 Vocational High School (SMK) in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, posing with lit cigarettes inside a classroom with the teacher in the background, went viral after being posted to an Instagram account on Tuesday.
Incredibly, the students’ teacher claimed to have not known about the incident when it took place on Monday.
“According to the class teacher, he did not see the action because he was explaining something, and that was the opinion of three other students as well,” said Kelapa Gading Education Department head Ahmad Hilmi, reading an official letter of explanation from the SMK 38 PGRI principle Sedya Basuki today as quoted by Detik.
However, that claim seems doubtful, unless the teacher has a total lack of smell and awareness. Also, the student who uploaded the photo (which has now been taken down) allegedly wrote in the caption that SMK PGRI 38 actually allowed students to smoke while in the classroom.
Ahmad said the school would punish the teacher by relieving him of all teaching duties, while the student who uploaded the photo has been expelled and two other students in the photo lost their rights to Jakarta Smart Cards (KJP), a government program that subsidizes educational expenses for students.
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