You would think that students would be happy about change in the school schedule that meant that they didn’t have to go to school on Saturdays anymore. But, as you can see from the video above, these Indonesian students are protesting the prospect of the government’s recently announced full day school program, which, starting next year, would have Indonesian public schools change their current six-day-per-week school schedule to five days per week.
The students in the video, who are wearing the outfits of santri (pesantren students) and are carrying signs indicating their affiliation with Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Indonesia and the world’s largest independent Islamic organization. The students can be heard chanting “Kill the minister”, presumably referring to Minister of Education and Culture Muhadjir Effendy, who announced the five-day school program.
Although the origin of the video was not made clear when it was first posted online, it quickly went viral online and got media coverage including a statement of condemnation from the Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI), which said it deplored the use of children in protests involving hateful language. (They similarly condemned about a viral video in which children were seen chanting “Kill Ahok!”, referring to former Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, during a Ramadan welcome parade).
Yesterday evening, NU released a statement confirming that the children were at a “peaceful action” initiated by the People Concerned About Indonesian Education Alliance (AMPPI) to protest the five-day school policy on Monday in Lumajang, East Java. However, according to their statement, the children were not taking part in the NU-sanctioned AMPPI-led protest and were not directed by anybody relating to either organization to chant those words. It also denied rumors that NU had demanded the uploaders of the video remove it from social media.
The reason that NU and some other Islamic organizations are protesting against the five-day school program is due to concerns that it will hurt traditional Islamic education schools such as pesantren and madrasah. The current six-day school schedule only keeps students in class until noon, and many Indonesian students go on to study at religious schools in the afternoon.
Previously, Education Minister Muhadjir had suggested that the five-day school program would remove the required religious education component from public schools, but after swift and immediate backlash he clarified that the new schedule would mean students would have to fulfill their religious education requirement outside of school through religious institutions.
Despite that, the overwhelming criticism of the new five-day school plan has forced the government to back off from uniformly enforcing it next year, with President Joko Widodo saying last week that the program was not mandatory and it would be up to individual schools to decide whether they were ready to implement the schedule change or not.
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