Indonesian Teacher Goes Long Way to Home School Students

Henrikus Suroto teaches at a school on the Indonesian island of Java. When the coronavirus health crisis¹ forced the school to close, he knew he could not move his classes online. His students live in rural areas that lack internet connections. Some do not even have a telephone signal.

Instead, Suroto found another way to make sure his students keep studying: He goes to them.

The 57-year-old teacher spends about six hours a day traveling by motorbike and on foot to reach communities in the Magelang area of Central Java.

Suroto sees educating the children as a responsibility.

"I am a teacher; it is my responsibility to do this. I must accompany and teach my students," he told Reuters news agency.

His only concern seems to be the rain. He says it gets especially difficult going up and down valleys on rainy days.

In the area where he works, many of the households are not set up to use technology. That is the case in large parts of the country, which is home to more than 260 million people.

Indonesia has more than 17 thousand islands. About 6,000 of them are inhabited³, and many parts are rural.

Millions of students, including those on the islands of Komodo and Madura, are struggling with home schooling⁴ because their households lack basic technology. Some students are forced to go several meters outside their homes to connect to the internet.

The country has around 60 million households, but only about one in six had an internet connection as recently as one year ago. That information comes from the Association of Internet Service Providers Indonesia.

"Well, I do not know what the internet is and other sophisticated⁵ devices that are often used nowadays," said Martinus Kartijo. He is father to a student in Henrikus Suroto's class.

Arnasih, a mother of another student, is thankful for the influence the teacher has on her children.

"The children listen and obey orders from their teachers, compared to their parents," she said.

For their part, students say they welcome the face-to-face meetings with Suroto, who wears a facial covering and obeys social distancing rules during his visits with students.

"Studying at home sometimes can be difficult, sometimes easy, but if Mr. Suroto is there, all subjects become easy," said Albertus Jonas Wiratama, a third-grade student.

I'm Alice Bryant.

Words in This Story

motorbike - n. a small motorcycle

accompany - v. to go somewhere with someone

inhabit² - v. to live in a place

household - n. the people in a family or other group that are living together in one house

sophisticated - adj. highly developed and complex

grade - n. a level of study that is completed by a student during one year

1 crisis   

n.危机，危急关头，决定性时刻，关键阶段

参考例句：

• He had proved that he could be relied on in a crisis.他已表明，在紧要关头他是可以信赖的。
• The topic today centers about the crisis in the Middle East.今天课题的中心是中东危机。

2 inhabit   

vt.居住于，（动物）栖居于

参考例句：

• Thoughts inhabit his mind.各种思想占据了他的心灵。
• Wild tribes still inhabit part of the Philippines.菲律宾部分地区仍然居住着一些原始部落。

3 inhabited   

adj. 有人居住的 动词inhabit的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The island is no longer inhabited. 这个岛已经没有人居住了。
• Nomads have inhabited this region for thousands of years. 游牧民族在这地区居住已有数千年了。

4 schooling   

n.教育；正规学校教育

参考例句：

• A child's access to schooling varies greatly from area to area.孩子获得学校教育的机会因地区不同而大相径庭。
• Backward children need a special kind of schooling.天赋差的孩子需要特殊的教育。

5 sophisticated   

adj.老练的，精密的，尖端的，高雅的

参考例句：

• She has become very sophisticated since she went to live in London.移居伦敦后她变得世故多了。
• This is a very sophisticated machine.这是一台非常精密的机器。