HEALTH PROTOCOL INFRASTRUCTURE IN PREVENTING COVID-19 TRANSMISSION IN HIGH SCHOOLS IN JAMBI PROVINCE

Abstract

Schools are one of the places at high risk of spreading COVID-19, so face-to-face learning requires the implementation of health protocols. The Ministry of Home Affairs requires a region’s readiness in New Normal Life (NNL) of infrastructure health protocols in public facilities of at least 80%. This study measures educational units’ readiness to provide health protocol infrastructure in high schools in Jambi Province in 2021. This research uses a descriptive quantitative method with observation techniques, and a checklist of supervision and fosters health protocol implementation in education units. The unit analysis is senior high schools (SMA) and vocational high schools (SMK) in Jambi Province, with purposive sampling of 10% samples in each district chosen randomly, namely 8 units in Jambi City, 3 in Kerinci Regency, and 5 in Tanjung Jabung Barat Regency. The results showed that senior high school units in Jambi Province were ready to implement NNL, such that 84.23% of schools had provided health protocol infrastructure facilities, with 87.23% of the layouts being good. The infrastructure that needs to be improved is the availability of clean and flowing water, spare masks in schools, supplies of hand sanitizers, labels for social distancing in class, and health data of school residents. The Jambi Provincial Government needs to encourage efforts of education units regarding health protocol adequacy and easy health protocol implementation and to have health data for the unit.