By Bartolomeus Marsudiharjo, WV Indonesia communications

Professor Yohanes Surya fires off question after question at his young, eager pupils.

“How much is 1,750 divided by 25?”

“70!” Lakibuluk (Ali for short) and five other children from World Vision Indonesia’s Karubaga development programme compete with each other to get the answer out first.

Yohanes, through his Surya Institute in Karawaci, West Java, has dedicated a career to improving the maths and science skills of Indonesian students, including coaching many to international scientific Olympic medals.

Ali is eleven and comes from a remote village in West Papua where teachers only turn up to class around 50% of the time.

In his home village in Tolikara, Ali has to walk for 30 minutes to reach his school. He is lucky; many of his friends have to walk more than two hours to reach school.

At night, he can not review his lessons because there is no electricity supply in his village. He usually takes time in the morning before going to school to review lesson he gets at school.

There are six classes that are taught by only five teachers in Ali’s school in Tolikara. When the teachers do not come, the 40 students in the class play all day.

“In Papua I do not learn well,” says Ali. “In Papua I play a lot, but here I learn a lot.”

In contrast, at Surya Institute, Ali and his friends start learning at 8 a.m. sometimes until 9 p.m. They are learning not only maths but also music, drawing, English and computer skills.

Some of these subjects are new to them, but they are smart children and adapt to the new lessons very quickly.

When Ali and his five friends arrived at Surya Institute they could not do any mathematical sums at all. They were selected on a very simple basis. “They knew how to count,” says Yohanes.

“After a month learning in Surya Institute, they are now skilled in mathematics,” he adds proudly.

Ali says he recently did 5,000 mathematics problems in a row with only one mistake. Before he came he would not have known even the number 5,000.

“I want to be a professor like Mr. Yohanes Surya,” says Ali with confidence.

In the class, Yohanes jokes that he has already reached his dream: “When you return to Papua, you will be called ‘teacher’!”

This program is a partnership between World Vision, local government and Surya Institute.

“I aim to show the world that Papua children do not lag behind other Indonesian children,” says Yohannes. “They only lack opportunity. If we give them opportunity, they can do things as well as any other child.”

“I hope they will join the maths Olympics!”