Jakarta
Krakatau Eruption Sends Jakarta's International Schools into Unplanned Remote Mode
A blanket distance-learning order from Jakarta's Education Office in early September caught international schools mid-term, just weeks after several new campuses had opened their doors for the first time.
Jakarta Province required every school across the capital to shift to remote learning from Monday 7 September, after its Education Office invoked Circular Letter No. 91/SE/2026 ordering a suspension of in-person classes at all levels in response to volcanic ash drifting from Mount Anak Krakatau. According to the Jakarta Globe, the order applied from early childhood education through to vocational high schools, with no exemption for private or international campuses.
For Jakarta's established international schools, the transition was broadly smooth. British School Jakarta and Jakarta Intercultural School had remote-learning frameworks tested and refined during the pandemic years. The sharper test fell on newer arrivals: Wellington College Independent School Jakarta, which had welcomed its founding cohort to its BSD City campus only weeks before, was required to suspend face-to-face teaching in only its second or third full week of operation.
Emergency ends by midweek
Governor Pramono Anung Wibowo confirmed on 9 September that schools across the capital would return to in-person learning the following day, after monitoring indicated the ash risk had eased. Indonesia's Primary and Secondary Education Minister separately said schools in more heavily affected areas could alternatively relocate to safe facilities equipped for in-person teaching, rather than defaulting to online delivery.
The episode underlines a structural reality for any school operating in Jakarta: regardless of ownership structure, fee level, or curriculum affiliation, every campus sits within Indonesia's regulatory and emergency-response framework. When Jakarta's Education Office issues a directive, it binds all institutions simultaneously, from neighbourhood government schools to campuses charging the equivalent of USD 25,000 a year. For international school operators entering the Indonesian market, embedding remote-learning contingency planning into first-year operations has quietly become standard practice.