Voices from Remote Islands

The threat of rain, wind and waves were a deterrence before the departure from the coast of Nusalaut Island to Saparua Island in Maluku on Saturday.

Among the dozens of passengers huddled in a motorboat was Carel Silahoy who was to pick up the materials for the national examinations.

The engine of the boat started amid heavy rain and wind. Some of the passengers used a piece of tarp to protect their heads. Carel and other passengers in the back who could not get under the tarp just stood in the boat, which was without a roof.

The wind blowing from the east made the sea, which had originally been calm, turn a little bit choppy. The boats measuring 7 meters by 4 meters, while the height of the waves was about a half meter.

The passengers sat facing forward, three to a wooden bench, arranged according to their size.

There were 28 passengers and a driver in the boat, although such a boat has a maximum capacity of 15 people. The boat was made of fiberglass and had two 40 horsepower engines. The boat had begun to move, but one of the engines stalled and only started again 1.8 kilometers out.

The passengers were mostly women and children who wanted to go to a market on Saparua. Nusalaut and Saparua were 22.2 kilometers apart and the hour-long trip was very risky because the boat was not equipped with proper safety equipment, such as life jackets.

"Sometimes, the waves reach two meters high. Thus, a teacher on a remote island should have the courage to challenge the waves," said Carel, the head of state senior high school SMAN 1 Nusalaut.

After arriving on Saparua, Carel told a colleague via a cell phone that the materials for the national exams had not yet arrived from Ambon when he got to Nusalaut. The journey from Ambon to Saparua also needed a motorboat. Carel waited almost two hours before the examination materials arrived at SMAN 1 Saparua. He took a motorcycle taxi to the school, which is about three-and-a-half kilometers away.

After completing the paperwork, he took another motorcycle taxi to transport the exam materials to the port where the boat was moored.

Carel looked worried. He feared it would be raining during the trip back to Nusalaut because in the previous week the weather had been wet on both Nusalaut and Saparua.

The exam materials were packed in cardboard boxes and then covered with a plastic sack and tarpaulins. However, that did not really make them safe from a heavy rain. In the package, there were also the exam materials for SMA Kristen-Ameth, a Christian high school in Nusalaut.

Apparently, nature cooperated. There was no rain. There was only seawater splashing into the boat. Passengers were wet and felt the heat from the sun. The evaporating seawater left a film of salt on their skin.

Borrowing money

Carel said the preparations to hold the exams, registering the students and getting the examination results, required a big budget.

The cost of a one-way commute to Ambon, a distance of about 58 km, ranged from Rp 500,000 to Rp 1.5 million. The fare depended on the distance, the size of the boat and the time of departure.

Dozens of times they had to commute between Nusalaut and Ambon, either directly or through Saparua. The total cost could be about Rp 20 million. Such expenditures could not be covered by the school’s budget, which was only enough to pay the salaries of the teachers.

Since January, the school has not received its operational funds. According to information obtained by Kompas, the head of the education and culture office in Maluku was being treated in a hospital so he was unable to sign for the disbursement of the funds.

"We had to borrow first from one of the shopowners. After the funds are disbursed, we\'ll repay the money," Carel added. The school, which has 118 students, receives Rp 44.25 million every three months from national and regional governments.

However, such problems did not dampen the spirit of the teachers for preparing their students to take the national exams.

The head of the SMA Kristen in Ameth, Syaranamual Frans, said the preparations lasted six months. The school formed study groups in seven villages in Nusalaut. During the exams, the students stayed in Ameth.

Due to the lack of facilities such as computers, the national exams in Nusalaut were still held conventionally. While many students in other parts of the country took the computer-based national examinations (UNBK), 36 students from SMAN 1 Nusalaut and 33 students from SMA Kristen-Ameth still used pencils to fill in the answer sheets.

"In their Facebook pages, students of vocational schools in Ambon wrote that they already done the computer-based exams. We also wanted to be like them, but it is not possible yet because in our school there is only one laptop," said Ervina Wairisal, an exam writer from SMAN 1 Nusalaut.

Based on data from the Education and Culture Office in Maluku, the number of high schools and vocational schools in Maluku that held UNBK reached a total of 59 with 7,197 participants. While the number of schools that still held conventional national exams was 357 with 21,925 participants.

The struggles of the teachers over the conventional exams on remote islands indicate that education is far from being evenly disbursed. Reaching the islands is not as easy as getting to other regions on the mainland.