Indonesian Minister of Education Will Allow Face-to-Face Schools Starting on January 2021

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Minister of Education and Culture, Nadiem Makarim, issued a policy regarding face-to-face schools in the midst of a pandemic. Nadiem now allows face-to-face learning in schools starting on January 2021.

“The government today has made a policy adjustment to give authority to the regional government, regional offices or Ministry of Religion offices to determine the granting of face-to-face learning permits in schools under its authority,” Nadiem Makarim said in a YouTube broadcast by the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture, Friday (11/20 / 2020).

Nadiem said that his party had evaluated the results of the previous four ministerial decrees. Nadiem has seen the situation nowadays that only 13 percent of schools are doing face-to-face learning and 87 percent are still learning from home.

Nadiem emphasized that distance learning schools have a negative impact on students and parents. The impact includes psychosocial.

“Starting January 2021, there are three parties who decide whether the school can be opened or not. The first is the local government itself, the regional government or in other situations the regional office or the Ministry of Religion office,” Nadiem said.

Nadiem said that the granting of face-to-face learning permits can be done simultaneously or gradually, depending on the readiness of each region and based on discretion and evaluation of the regional head. Schools that carry out face-to-face learning must implement very strict health protocols.

“This policy applies from the even semester of the 2020/2021 school year. It will be in January 2021. So regions and schools are expected from now on, if they are ready to face to face, they must immediately increase their readiness to carry out this from now until the end of the year,” Nadiem said.

Nadiem said face-to-face learning was allowed, not mandatory. The decision rests on three sides; they are the local government, school principals and parents.

“Face-to-face learning is allowed, not required and the decision lies with the local government, principals and parents,” he said.

“This big difference from the previous Field Competency Selection (SKB) is that the risk zoning map from the COVID Task Force no longer determines the granting of face-to-face learning permits, but the local government will decide so they can sort out the areas in a more granular, more detailed way,” Nadiem said.