Indonesia’s Ramazan school moves online

Monitoring Desk

JAKARTA: Each year during the fasting month of Ramazan, Indonesian tutor Ahmad Winardi has taught a special course for students in the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country to deepen their knowledge of Islam. But this year, the novel coronavirus has brought a Ramazan like never before, with shuttered mosques and strict physical distancing regulations, and so Winardi has moved his Islamic studies online.

One consequence is that the courses, previously held only in cities on the islands of Java and Sumatra, have this year attracted a wider range of students in the archipelago, including from Indonesian Borneo. “Due to COVID-19, we’re restricted from activities outside our houses so we started the online Islamic course,” said Gemia Indria, one of the organisers.

“And it turns out online teaching removes geographical barriers, so we can reach out to more participants.” Known as “Pesantran Kilat”, which loosely translates as “intensive Islamic boarding school”, the course teaches students about Islam, as well as creative ways to recite the Koran, such as through hand gestures. The gestures, Winardi explained, can act as fun prompts to help primary school students, most aged from 6 to 12 years old, recall religious verses.

“The chemistry is absolutely different as we don’t meet in person,” Winardi said of the online lessons. “But we try some ice-breaking activities, such as shouting ‘God is greatest’. Hopefully it encourages them to memorise the Koran.” Joining the class from the capital, Jakarta, alongside classmates from South Sumatra and West Java, Muhammad Umar Abdurrahman, 11, said he enjoyed the lesson, although his father saw room for improvement, such as more comprehensive course material. Most residents of Jakarta have been staying home since March 20 as part of social distancing measures, which have seen schools and businesses close, and gatherings of more than five people banned until May 22.

Indonesia, which has the highest coronavirus death toll in East Asia outside China, has reported more than 12,000 coronavirus cases and 872 deaths, as of on Tuesday. Meanwhile, a team of Indonesian engineers working around the clock says it has produced in two months a compact ventilator to sell at a fraction of the usual cost, hoping to accelerate the fight against east Asia’s second-deadliest COVID-19 outbreak. Like many other countries, Indonesia faces a shortage of the vital mechanical breathing devices to treat people with the pandemic disease.

Using household materials such as plastic drinking tumblers to make parts, the 40 engineers from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) developed the Vent-I ventilator that is the size of a mini-oven, said team leader Syarif Hidayat. The institute aims to sell the machines for less than 15 million rupiah ($1,000) each, one-twentieth or less than the typical $20,000 to $25,000, he said. “The structure of this ventilator is much simpler compared to the ventilator that we see in the intensive care unit,” said Hidayat, a 57-year-old lecturer at the university.

Indonesia, where infections of the coronavirus now exceed 12,000, has 8,413 ventilators in 2,867 hospitals across the archipelago, Health Minister Terawan Agus Putranto said last month. That is far from enough for the 180,000 ICUs that Indonesia will need in the best case, according to a recent ITB-led study that forecasts infections rising to 1.6 million in the country of 260 million people. As, 895 people in Indonesia had died of COVID-19, the government said, behind only China in east Asia. Indonesia has a mortality rate of 7.2% from the disease.

A key feature of the Vent-I, Hidayat said as he displayed the machine in his lab 150 km (90 miles) southeast of the capital Jakarta, is Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP), which is vital for a steady supply of air to the lungs of people with COVID-19. (Reuters)