Nani Afrida, Aceh Jaya – Thousands of students in Aceh Jaya regency, Aceh, are still attending lessons in tents more than a year after the deadly tsunami destroyed many of the regency's schools.

At least 98 of 161 schools in Aceh Jaya regency were destroyed in the Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami, Aceh Jaya Regent Zulfian Ahmad said.

"We are still waiting for help from the German Red Cross and Samaritan Purse to rebuild the schools," Zulfian said.

However, with much of the road network in the regency also destroyed in the tsunami, it is impossible to get building supplies to the area with any kind of speed.

Whatever the reasons, the children of the regency just want a proper place to study. Srikandi, 12, who attended Keude Teunom elementary school before the tsunami, said: "I wish I had a classroom like the one before the tsunami." Srikandi, a fifth grader, now attends a "school" that consists of two large tents and a hut where the textbooks and classroom supplies are kept. Eighty students have attended this makeshift school for the past year.

The students were only recently provided with chairs and desks, before that they sat on mats or on the dirt.

There are two classrooms to a tent, forcing the teachers to take turns leading lessons. For example, when one class is quietly doing math exercises, the other class will have an Indonesian lesson.

"It's hard to concentrate, especially when there's an aftershock or a storm, because the school is near the sea," Srikandi said, pointing toward the beach just 100 meters from the tent.

Principal Syamsuddin said the German Red Cross had promised to rebuild the elementary school, but the work had yet to begin. "The quality of education here has dropped drastically since the tsunami," Syamsuddin told the Post.

Students at a private Islamic junior high school in Panga district also find themselves still attending lessons in a tent. And perhaps even more distracting than being located meters from the beach, this tent sits along a main road in the district.

When asked about the delay in rebuilding the school, principal Abubakar Arhas could only guess. "Perhaps it's because we're a private school." There are about 100 students studying in the battered tent, all that is left of what was the best private Islamic junior high school in the regency before the tsunami.