New Schools Reignite Students’ Passion

Name: New Schools Reignite Students’ Passion
Uploaded: 2019-11-08T03:45:42Z
Duration: 20 min 32 s
Description: Many students in Palu, Central Sulawesi, have been studying in temporary structures for about a year since the September 2018 earthquake. Their passion for studying has now been reignited thanks to new school building.

Many students in Palu, Central Sulawesi, have been studying in temporary structures for about a year since the September 2018 earthquake. Their passion for studying has now been reignited thanks to new school building.

VIDELIS JEMALI

· 6 minutes read

Many students in Palu city, Central Sulawesi, have been studying in temporary structures for about a year since the September 2018 earthquake. Their passion for studying has now been reignited thanks to new school buildings.

As soon as the classroom door opened, Miftah, 12, and 20 other students rushed in to choose their seats. Sitting in the middle of the second row, Miftah stroked the surface of the dark red desk.

“The table is smooth,” he said with a smile.

After a moment, he hurried to the wall at the front of the room and pushed a button to turn on the ceiling fan.

“It is cool [in here]. We’ve been studying in a hot place for a long time,” the sixth grader of Boyaoge Inpres elementary school (SDI) said on Tuesday (5/11/2019) in Tatanga district of Palu, Central Sulawesi.

We’ve been studying in a hot place for a long time.

Miftah and his friends played in the class for about 20 minutes. They then listened as Unkir, a teacher, told them to maintain the facilities in their classroom.

Miftah is one of 225 SDI Boyaoge students who have been studying in makeshift classrooms for the past year. The classrooms were built at the end of October 2018 and were made of wood and bamboo with had 1-meter-high walls, except on the eastern side that faced the morning sun, which was fitted with a “large window” that reached the roof.

The two classrooms were covered with tarpaulin, which had been torn by the wind. Six other classrooms had roofs made of thatched palm, some of which had come off. School hours generally lasted until 10.30 a.m. Central Indonesia Time, especially for tarpaulin-covered classrooms that became too hot for the students.

The temporary classrooms were also frequently dusty from the debris that blew in from the yard outside and the space between them. Spraying water was ineffective under the scorching sun to prevent the dust.

For the last two months, fourth- and fifth-grade students occupied rooms with concrete floors, wooden walls and zinc roofs. However, the heat persisted because the rooms had no ceilings. Dust, too, kept infiltrating the rooms.

Readers’ donations

Miftah and his peers’ suffering have now ended. Their new school building was built by the Kompas Humanitarian Fund (DKK), a foundation that gathers donations from the daily’s readership.

We want to study harder in this new classroom.

The school has six classrooms, each furnished with wooden desks, a cabinet and a ceiling fan. Each room has 7-9 windows for good air circulation. The ceiling is made from porous materials to keep the rooms cool in the sunny weather. Aside from the six classrooms, the school also has a faculty area, a library and four toilets. The schoolyard is covered with paving blocks.

“This is even better than our classroom before the quake. It had no fan. It also didn’t have as many windows, so it was rather hot. We want to study harder in this new classroom,” said Miftah, who will be using the new classroom as of 11 Nov. 2019, along with his classmates.

The SDI Baoyaoge building was destroyed in the earthquake on 28 Sept. 2018. The earthquake and ensuing tsunami and soil liquefaction claimed 4,935 lives across Palu city and the regencies of Sigi and Donggala. The disaster destroyed 110,000 houses, structures and buildings, as well as 1,299 schools.

In addition to SDI Boyaoge, the DKK Foundation also built new facilities to replace three other schools that were destroyed in the quake: Madrasah Ibtidaiyah (MI) An Nur Buuts elementary school in Kabonena subdistrict of Ulujadi district, and SDI Kalawara and Sambo state elementary schools in Sigi regency. The four new school buildings were inaugurated and handed over by Kompas chief editor Ninuk Mardiana Pambudy and DKK Foundation chairman Rusdi Amral to Palu municipality and Sigi regency on Thursday (7/11) in a ceremony held at MI An Nur Buuts.

Construction on the two new schools in Palu is finished built and they are ready to use. The two schools in Sigi are being finished and will be for use in December. The DKK Foundation has spent Rp 5.812 billion on constructing the four new schools.

Although their situation may not be as bad as what the students of SDI Boyaoge endured, the students of MI An Nur Buuts have also endured uncomfortable conditions since their classrooms were destroyed in the quake. They studied in emergency tents for the first three months following the disaster, enduring hot weather and dust while studying.

They later moved to permanent classrooms that were erected quickly. But the relatively narrow rooms were hot, since they were not fitted with fans or air conditioners.

Now they have moved to the school built by the DKK Foundation. On Monday, fifth grader Nabil Athalla, 10, and other students could be observed solemnly reading the Quran in their new classrooms. There was none of the heat that used to disturb their concentration.

“This new classroom is very cool. The chair is also soft. It makes me even more eager to study,” Nabil said during a break.

Phased reconstruction

Palu Education and Culture Agency head Ansyar Sutiadi said that around 400 preschools and junior high school had been affected by the quake, tsunami and soil liquefaction. By early November, about 80 schools had been rebuilt by the Education and Culture Ministry, private entities and foundations. The remaining schools would be repaired in 2020 using the ministry’s funds.

The students study in emergency facilities, tents or semi-permanent buildings during the reconstruction phase, which is to last two years.

“Next year, we hope that all schools will be rebuilt or repaired,” he added.

Promoting achievements

An Nur Buuts Foundation chairman ustad Limra promised to properly maintain the new school building and to promote student achievements.

“This school building is better than we imagined. We promise that the quality of education and our maintenance of this building will be better than Kompas imagines,” said Limra.

I like educational institutions that have high vision, that challenge their students, including pursuing a Nobel.

MI An Nur Buuts, now in its seventh year, has made many achievements. Most recently, six of its students won trophies at the national Quran reading contest.

Limra affirmed that under his direction, the school aspired to teach its students to become guardians of world peace. He also challenged its students to aim for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Ninuk expressed hoped that the new facilities would help her and other students make even greater achievements. “I like educational institutions that have high vision, that challenge their students, including pursuing a Nobel [prize],” she said.

In addition to the school buildings, the DKK Foundation built 32 blocks of temporary dwellings – a total of 320 rooms – in Palu and Sigi. The foundation also distributed basic needs during the state of emergency immediately following the disaster. The DKK has so far distributed Rp 15 billion in aid to help survivors and local administrations in recovering from the Central Sulawesi disaster.

Editor:

Syahnan Rangkuti

Palu EARTHQUAKE survivors kompas humanitarian fund new school building