Acheh: Attention Needed on Education
With most of the reconstruction effort in Aceh focused on physical development, the government and donors should start paying better attention to education, activists say.
"Everyone is focused on building infrastructure. The fact that there are many children under five years of age, most of whom were orphaned after the tsunami and who are in need of education, has received little attention," the Indonesian Heritage Foundation's deputy director Rahma Dewi told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.
Giant waves triggered by huge earthquakes hit Aceh on December 26, 2004, killing 130,000 people and leaving 37,000 missing. The catastrophe also left thousands of children without parents.
Dewi said that special programs would have to be developed to provide proper education for children still living in tents.
"Educational programs for pre-school children should be promoted to develop their characters," she said.
The Indonesian Heritage Foundation, along with the province's Family Welfare Movement and oil giant ExxonMobil Oil Indonesia, has provided support for 100 centers to educate toddlers across the province.
She said that many children had experienced trauma from prolonged conflicts and the tsunami, causing them to be prone to emotional disturbances.
Aceh-Nias Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (BRR) spokesman Sudirman Said said that educational programs for children existed.
"Our present priority, however, is to relocate people from tents to houses," he added.
There are still an estimated 50,000 people housed in barracks and another 67,500 in tents, according to the agency's 2005 report.
Said said children made up less than 50 percent of the people living in tents.
He argued that character and capacity building in children could not be held effectively without good infrastructure.
"If we don't build these facilities soon, no education or nursery programs will take place because many roads and bridges in some areas are destroyed," he added.
He added that after the physical development was completed in the next two years, his office would focus more on improving residents' welfare and the education system.
"We are now formulating the strategy that may be implemented in the last year of BRR's mandate," he said.
The government established the agency in April 2005, assigning it to carry
out a four-year coordination and implementation strategy in the province.
