Haze from wildfires in Indonesia forces 1.4 million students into remote learning

JAKARTA - Around 1.4 million students in six Indonesian provinces have shifted to online learning due to poor air quality triggered by forest and land fires, an official said on Wednesday.

As of September 2, around 1.43 million students from 12,874 schools in six of the provinces hit hardest by forest and land fires have been studying remotely, Gogot Suharwoto, an education ministry official, told the media.

Indonesia has intensified efforts to contain haze caused by wildfire in the six provinces, which include Riau, Jambi and South Sumatra on the island of Sumatra, as well as West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, and South Kalimantan on Borneo.

Of the 1.43 million students, 1.1 million are in West Kalimantan, Gogot said, the province that has recorded the most extensive wildfires so far this year.

The remote learning period will last from August 31 until September 4 and will be continuously evaluated every three days, Gogot said.

The decision to conduct online learning would be based on the Air Pollution Standard Index in each region, he said.

Remote learning would be imposed when the index exceeds 200 in a particular location, Gogot added.

A majority of regions in Kalimantan recorded air pollution readings in excess of 200 on Wednesday, with some even exceeding 1,000, Forestry Ministry data showed. Southeast Pontianak region in West Kalimantan province was the worst hit, with a reading of 1,023.

Indonesia's air quality classification system considers readings above 300 as "hazardous".

"School principals are authorised to take immediate action in urgent situations. They do not have to wait until conditions worsen or spend too long consulting with other authorities," Gogot said.

Forestry Ministry data showed that about 200,000 hectares of land were burned by wildfires in the first seven months of the year, nearly doubling in July alone.

Wildfires burned around 73,310 hectares of land in six priority provinces, according to Forestry Ministry data.

(Reporting by Ananda Teresia; Editing by David Stanway)