PRESS RELEASE

Community Coalition Urges 4 Ministers to Postpone and Review PTM Policy for Child Safety

arta, 3 October 2021 – The Coalition to Save Indonesian Children sent a letter of encouragement along with a policy paper to the government to review the Limited Face-to-Face Learning (PTMT) policy. The Save Children Coalition is an interdisciplinary and inter-professional coalition that focuses on child safety and the sustainability of education in Indonesia during the Covid-19 pandemic. The coalition believes that the PTMT policy without vaccination requirements and strict epidemiological standards actually risks the safety and health of children, as evidenced by the widespread public complaints about violations of health protocols and positive cases during PTMT. The government needs to postpone the implementation of PTMT and improve various aspects before PTMT can be implemented in order to ensure children's safety.

Natasha Devanand Dhanwani, a member of LaporCovid-19 advocacy, stated that PTMT threatens children's lives because vaccination rates are still low. We can see from the Ministry of Health's vaccine dashboard that the vaccination rate for students as of October 2 2021 has only reached 14.71% for the first dose and 9.98% for the second dose. Meanwhile, vaccination achievements for new teachers reached 62.18% for dose 1 and 38% for dose 2 on September 22 2021. Vaccines are not the main weapon in reducing the rate of transmission, but vaccines can reduce the severity of contracting Covid-19, so they should be used as a condition for opening PTMT. Apart from that, Natasha also sees that opening schools for 12 year old children is very dangerous. Vaccines for children under 12 years are still being studied, but children under 12 years still need PTMT. This means that potential exposure to children could occur, because the rate of transmission is still occurring, and when children are infected, it will cause severity. Natasha said.

LaporCovid-19 also still finds gaps in the death data reported by the Ministry of Health and the Provincial Government. Number of numbers testing which is not open at the city and district level is also a problem, so we don't know how many people are tested, even though the number of people who are tested affects the number positivity rate. Positivity rate reported is indeed low, below 5%, but it should be noted that this figure is not valid because positivity rate the existing ones still include antigen test results.

Reports received by LaporCovid-19 through its complaint channel show that violations in schools are still occurring. From January 2021 to September there were 167 verified reports regarding the implementation of face-to-face learning. In September alone, there were 22 reports submitted regarding inadequate supporting infrastructure to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 in schools, violations of health protocols by school residents, and irregularities made by schools regarding permits to enter face-to-face schools which should be with parental approval.

Iman Zanatul Haeri, Head of Teacher Advocacy at the Education and Teachers Association (P2G) also said that the government's argument for wanting to open schools immediately was based on premature assumptions. One of the claims about the school dropout rate which rose drastically during the Covid-19 pandemic was refuted by data from the Ministry of Education and Culture, Research and Technology that the school dropout rate was still higher in the previous year, for example in 2018-2019 it reached 301,127 students, while in 2019-2020 it was lower, namely 157,166 students. It is true that there are problems during distance education (PJJ), but these are also related to poor accessibility guarantees provided by the government. Instead of rushing PTM, the government needs to create one grand design education in a health emergency situation, to answer future challenges if we have to return to a situation of strict restrictions, concluded Iman. If we refer to the Ministry of Education and Culture, Research and Technology's Learning Readiness Dashboard as of October 3 2021, only 59.56% of schools have filled up. "This means that there are around 217,310 schools (40.44%) that are not ready for limited PTM," said Iman. He is also concerned about the supervision aspect during PTMT. From P2G reports in various regions such as Bogor, Blitar, Karawang, Bima, Bukittinggi and East Aceh, violations of health protocols in schools are still occurring. Apart from that, supervision is also minimal. For example, in DKI Jakarta, supervision only takes the form of completing online modules. In Bima and Karawang Regencies, supervision, outreach and training are also inadequately provided by the Regional Government Education Service (Pemda). So violations more often occur due to ignorance, added Iman.

Charlie Albajili, Public Lawyer for LBH Jakarta, said that the government's attitude of ignoring epidemiological measures in implementing PTMT shows the state's neglect of guaranteeing the rights of children and school residents to receive the highest health status guaranteed by the constitution and statutory regulations. Ministerial Decree 4 which does not regulate vaccination requirements for the implementation of PTMT is also inconsistent with the preamble to the regulation which clearly states that accelerating vaccination of school residents is necessary to accelerate PTMT. "This condition shows that the government has not prioritized public health ahead of other aspects such as the economy, even though in a situation designated by the government as a health emergency, it is impossible to prioritize health aspects," concluded Charlie.

That starting from the critical note of the PTMT implementation problem, The Coalition demands that the President of the Republic of Indonesia and the relevant Ministers:

1. Postpone face-to-face learning until: the government ensures that all school populations according to their age groups receive vaccinations and positivity rate (positive case ratio based on PCR tests) at district/city level below 5%; the government has determined the number of health protocol infrastructure facilities in schools with a proportional ratio according to the population involved in PTM; in accordance with assessments from the Regional Government; and parents give permission;
2. Postponing face-to-face learning for children under 12 years of age because there is no vaccination policy and the varying impacts of Covid-19 on children, both during the positive confirmation period and after Covid-19;
3. Accelerate the implementation of vaccination as a whole and on target, especially for teaching staff and students.
4. Strengthen random regular monitoring, routine contact tracing and consistent random testing of school residents to measure the level of transmission on a school scale;
5. Provide a detailed explanation to parents, containing epidemiological data and the readiness of school infrastructure in facing the pandemic. Provide accurate, adequate and adequate information about COVID-19 and its risks to children;
6. Apart from preparing PTMT, the government still has to improve the PJJ system to be more effective and efficient with adequate facilities and qualified teachers, as a form of mitigation if strict PPKM needs to be reintroduced;
7. The government must develop a grand design for an education system that is able to adapt to disaster and crisis situations, which will then be able to become the government's guide in implementing education in emergency conditions.

Coalition to Save Indonesian Children

Report Covid-19 | LBH Jakarta | Association of Education and Teachers (P2G) | Center for Education
Regulations and Development Analysis (Smart) | YLBHI| Banten People's LBH | Surabaya Children
Crisis Center (SCCC)

Contact Person:

Yemiko Happy, Report Covid-19 – 081358982549
Charlie Albajili, Public Lawyer LBH Jakarta – 087819959487
Iman Zanatul Haeri, Chair of Advocacy – Education and Teachers Association (P2G) – 081297249429

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