JAKARTA ~ While other children his age attend overcrowded schools elsewhere in Indonesia, a six-year-old in easternmost Papua has an entire school for himself, a report said.

The boy, Alen, is the sole pupil at the state primary school of Mapia on a Pacific Ocean island off Papua province’s north coast, the Kompas newspaper reported.

Charles Faidiban, who acts both as principal and the only teacher, said that when he was assigned to the school for the group of Mapia islands in March, he arrived to find just five children. But four of them moved shortly afterwards, leaving the three-room school building dedicated to the one remaining pupil – Alen.