Jakarta – The recent case of a group bullying an elementary school student in Bukittinggi, West Sumatra, has sparked widespread public concern, with activists attributing the incident – and other similar cases of school bullying – to the country's failed education system.

The 12-year-old female student, was seen being beaten, kicked and yelled at by several of her classmates – boys and a girl – in a video uploaded to YouTube last week, which soon went viral among Indonesian "netizens."

Other students in the classroom were heard cheering on at the scene, encouraging the assailants to continue with their attack, while others simply ignored the situation.

The cornered victim did not fight back, only sobbed and pleaded for her classmates to stop, while helplessly using her arm and leg to shield herself from the assault. The students were later found to be fifth-graders of the SD Trisula Perwari elementary school in Bukittinggi.

The incident happened on Oct. 2 in a classroom at the school, according to a witness, while the supervising teacher was absent. Bukittinggi Deputy Mayor Ismet Amziz said he was enraged by the incident.

"Aside from summoning the Perwari Foundation, we'll also summoned the school principal," Ismet was quoted as saying by state news agency Antara on Sunday. "It is our obligation to protect children and prevent violence against them in Bukittinggi."

Lawmaker Alex Indra Lukman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) said such an incident happened because the current education system, which forces schools to self-manage their finances, hindered teachers from focusing on their main duty: teaching – citing the teacher's absence while one of his students was being assaulted in the school's classrooms.

"That's why we want to revise that clause [in the education law] concerning self-financial managements by schools. We worry that the clause diverts schools from the rightful education goals," Alex said.

"It makes teachers pay attention more on projects [that may profit] their schools, rather than on improving the quality of education of their pupils. Teachers should not be laden with structural works. Their duty is to teach; it should be only to teach."

However, psychologist Zera Mendoza of the Bukittinggi Hospital said incidents such as these happen because of a lack of guidance from both parents and schools, resulting in the children's inability to distinguish between right and wrong.

"Their families and schools failed to embed in them the rightful mindset. It's the same case with people who are used to violence," Zera said. "There are so many things wrong in the video, from the perspective of the assailants and also the victim," Zera said.

"We cannot call [the children's actions] deviant behavior, though, because they're basically still innocent. We can still modify and fix their behaviors."

Prominent children's rights activist Arist Merdeka Sirait slammed the state's lack of intervention in cases of violence involving children, a trend which has been steadily increasing.

"Children are the next generation of our nation. If we let these [cases of violence] continue to happen, and increasingly at that, they will become a national problem," said Arist, who chairs the National Commission on Child Protection (Komnas PA). "Families and schools are told to be responsible, but the government has been absent," he added.

Arist said last year the commission received reports of 3,339 cases of violence against children, 16 percent of which were committed by other children.

The figure was an increase from those in the years before, and in the first half of this year the number of cases already reached 1,626, representing a 26 percent increase from the same period of last year. The number of offenders under the age of 16, meanwhile, rose by 10 percent compared with the figure in the first half of 2013.

"That is frightening because those [minor offenders] are actually victims of ignorant adults. And they're turning into monsters feeding on other children," Arist said.

He added that the government could intervene by improving school curricula, saying the existing ones, which have little consistency, never really touch the core of the problem which is the increasing violence among children.

"There's no need for Muhammad Nuh to speak out [against such violence] as he's doing now, when he has failed to compose relevant curricula," he said, referring to the education minister.

Nuh has been quoted as saying, in his comment to the Bukittinggi case, that schools and teachers needed to put more emphasis on instilling morals and the need to care about one another among students, since the earliest phase of education – namely playgrounds and kindergartens.

"But of course that is not enough. We also need to involve the public at large in dealing with the issue," Nuh said.

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/violence-education-system-gets-fail/