When my daughter was three years old, my neighbours and acquaintances began to ask:

“Why isn’t Kinan going to school yet?”

They meant nursery school or day care. It was a question I hadn’t foreseen when I decided to move to Jakarta 14 years ago from Pangandaran, on the south coast of Java, where I assumed that a child’s duty was simply to play as much as possible.

I lived with my grandmother, in a village whose narrow road was barely adequate for a car. Rice paddies and vegetable fields surrounded my home and our schoolhouse. If it rained, we cut banana leaves to use as umbrellas. Children took off their shoes and walked in the mud to school. When flooded rivers kept the teachers from making it to class, we were allowed to play in the fields behind the schoolhouse, along with the water buffalo and goats. This was a common experience for children in rural Indonesia, and it shaped my view of school: free and fun.

I lived in my grandmother’s village until the fourth grade. Then, since my grades were good, I entered a special class for gifted kids – children who did not mind being confined in a classroom for at least seven hours, with extra laboratory work after that.

I ran away from school at the age of 15, for things I was sure were more fun: riding trains from city to city across Java without paying for a ticket; camping on riverbanks; sleeping in doorways.

Of course, after months of disappearing, my school expelled me. It took my mother a long time to persuade me to return – and only after she found me a school that was not too concerned about my frequent vanishing acts.

When I finally had a daughter myself, the thing that worried me most was sending her to school. What if she didn’t like it and ran away from home, as her father had done? I want to send her to school. I just don’t want her to hate it.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Jakarta’s middle-class madness complicates everything about a child’s education’ ... students in Cempaka Putih, Jakarta. Photograph: Beawiharta/Reuters

I figured that the age of seven would be a good time for her to begin school and start reading and writing. As it turned out, in suburban Jakarta, that idea seemed very strange indeed.



My next-door neighbours and co-workers began approaching me, talking about the future competition our children will face, and the importance of attending school as early as possible. I tried to squirm away, replying simply that I didn’t like to go to school when I was young. Look at me today, I said. My life is fine.

It was a debate I might have been able to win if not for another problem: from morning to late afternoon, my daughter had no friends to play with. All the kids her age were in pre-school.

I didn’t really care whether she could read, write, count or recite. There was still plenty of time for that

So I gave up. My wife made a list of nursery schools: one religious community had an afternoon class teaching the Qur’an and reciting prayers; others offered a wide range of activities. I ended up choosing a small tutoring class that taught children to read, write and count. Not because I want her to master this at the age of three – but because it’s close by, so I could take her in the morning, and it was just three days a week.

Apparently, this was not enough. The neighbours started asking:

“Why hasn’t Kinan joined in reciting the Qur’an at the musholla?”

A musholla or surau is an Islamic assembly building, a small mosque in the neighbourhood. Although I was raised in a devout Muslim family, I almost never go to mosque. I want, and expect, a secular education for my daughter, just as my parents always sent me to the government-run secular school.

But I learned things were no longer that simple. Every afternoon, my daughter’s peers flocked to the mosque, wearing their long dresses and colourful hijabs. My girl started to whine for permission to join them. Finally, I consented.



The one thing I could do is to honour her spirit. When she was too lazy to recite the Qur’an, I let her stay home. I was paying a monthly fee for her schooling but I didn’t really care whether she could read, write, count or recite. There was still plenty of time for that.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘I didn’t like going to school when I was young. And I turned out fine’ ... author Eka Kurniawan. Photograph: Goh Chai Hin/AFP/Getty

A year later, when it was time for her to enter kindergarten, I started thinking more seriously about the issue. Kindergarten is a bridge toward elementary school – and, like I said, my entire school experience was absolutely no fun.



My first thought was to cross out all public schools. The government sets too many rules for children. I began to think of private schools.

And I realised that I had been seized with the madness of Jakarta’s middle class.

The madness complicates everything about a child’s education. My own experience tells me that there are schools with refreshing approaches (students free to roam around in the classroom, unburdened by schoolwork) and tedious ones (students fiercely competing while being locked in class for hours). It leads me to believe that all children have unique educational needs. Many of my colleagues share my views. But it poses a crazy problem: how is it possible to provide millions of different education systems to millions of schools?

Even so, many parents still believe that there is a suitable school for their particular child in the wilderness of Jakarta. Do not be surprised to hear that some families who live in west Jakarta send their children to school in east Jakarta, and some families who live on the outskirts send their children to the city centre. Because of the distances, these children – unlike the children in my village who walk alone to class – have to be taken to school by car or motorcycle.

I figured that if the Jakarta rush hour traffic was partly due to the mania of parents sending their kids to school by car, I could at least try not to be part of it. So I started to look at kindergartens in my neighbourhood.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A boy travels to school in Jakarta. Photograph: Enny Nuraheni/Reuters

Unfortunately, I didn’t find the ideal school I craved: the school that lets children in and out of the classroom as they please; lets them sit under a tree when there are in the mood to play, or sleep on a bench when they are tired. The school with teachers who aren’t snobs. The school that teaches English. The school with an International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum so the students can apply to highly respected universities around the world.

I did find one place that close to the ideal. But it was an hour’s drive away.

“Maybe we can move?” asked her mother.

It was another crazy idea – especially since I bought our house two years ago – but I’m sure many families have done it.

I began to look into houses listings around the school.

Then, one afternoon, I saw my daughter cheerfully playing with her friends in front of the house. One of them was her cousin (my sister lives not far from us). I couldn’t imagine separating such a small child from her friends and starting a new social life in a new place, simply because she had to go to a “perfect” school. What if she wasn’t happy moving to an unfamiliar area?

In the end, we enrolled her in the kindergarten run by the State Islamic University of Jakarta.

My father was an English teacher, and taught us the language. Though I have never mastered it, I used it in Pangandaran to talk to tourists; and when I ran out of books, I went to the library and began reading novels in English. I knew if I taught English to my daughter, or even just spoke it with her, people would ridicule me. But consider this fact: one of my favourite novels, Moby-Dick, has never been translated into Indonesian.

My father was also an imam, and gave sermons at the mosque every Friday afternoon. He taught us to read the Qur’an at night. But he never sent me to a religious school. In fact, he didn’t even mind when I studied western philosophy at university. He believed that secular education gave us the possibility of seeing a broader world and knowledge – and that it protects children from radical ideas about religion. Religious radicalism rose in Indonesia in the 1980s, and has been growing stronger over the past decade.

So, even though I am friends with some of the alumni, I hesitated at first to send my daughter to the Islamic University’s kindergarten.

$40bn to save Jakarta: the story of the Great Garuda Read more

But it wasn’t like what I had imagined. They only require children to wear the hijab on Friday; on Thursday, my daughter can wear shorts, or any of her favourite clothes. Most of her playmates were there, it’s a 10-minute ride from our house, and she survived her first year just fine. Every so often, when her sense of sloth comes along, I let her stay home.

Nevertheless, I do not expect to send her to the madrassa elementary school, which emphasises religious education, and is managed by the same university. But there are still many months to go before she finishes kindergarten. And, as usual, I imagined there would be plenty of time to decide.

Then, one morning, a neighbour asked:

“Why is Kinan not enrolled in primary school?”

Admissions are open for entry next July. If I do not sign her up now, she might not get a place.

I know that the next weeks will instil in us parents a new rage – “It’s a religious school, isn’t? They teach the children English, don’t they?” – the same particular hysteria that hits many middle-class families in Jakarta, each of us with their own slightly different reasons and goals, all of it distracting us from asking our children:

“Which school would you like to go to, kiddo?”

Eka Kurniawan is the first Indonesian nominated for the Man Booker prize. Beauty is a Wound is out now on Pushkin Press, and Vengeance Is Mine will be published in 2017. He lives in the suburbs of Jakarta

What would make Jakarta better, and what changes are most urgently needed? Share your ideas, thoughts, stories and pictures here. You can also contribute on Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #GuardianJakarta

