Tri Indah Oktavianti, Jakarta – High-ranking officials in Jakarta have called on schools and teachers to give additional courses to students to prevent them from joining protests against the controversial Job Creation Law.
Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Nana Sudjana, Jakarta Military commander Maj. Gen. Dudung Abdurachman and Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan held a joint meeting on Monday to discuss solutions that would stop the participation of students in upcoming protests expected to take place on Wednesday and Sunday.
"We are trying to find a solution to prevent students from being used by antidevelopment groups who promote violence," Nana said on Monday, as quoted by Tempo.co.
The Jakarta, Banten and West Java education heads, as well as several principals of schools located in the Greater Jakarta area, also attended the meeting, where they were told to give the students additional work during the time of the planned protests, Nana explained.
"We also suggest other character-development activities such as extracurriculars highlighting Pancasila education and other positive projects," he added.
Junior high, vocational and high school students were among those arrested during chaotic protests against the jobs law that took place in the capital on Oct. 8, 13 and 20. Nana said the Jakarta police had arrested 2,667 people allegedly involved in riots during the three protests, 70 percent of whom were students.
The police have named 143 people suspects, and 67 of those suspects are currently being detained. "Thirty-one of the 67 detained suspects are students," Nana added.
Governor Anies said his administration would issue classroom teaching plans (RPP) as guidance for teachers to provide lessons for junior high, vocational and senior high school students.
He said the lessons would nurture students' critical thinking about contemporary issues in the country through class discussions instead of street protests.
"This RPP will provide teaching guidance for teachers to invite their students into discussions in a structured manner. We want our children at school to make use of the contemporary situations as learning topics," Anies said on Monday.
The RPP consists of teaching guidelines that include topics, purposes of study, material resources and evaluation methods. Anies said the RPP was not limited to Jakarta as it could also be used by teachers nationwide.