Data on illiteracy may be inaccurate
JAKARTA (JP): A senior official of the Ministry of Education and Culture has warned the provincial government against pumping up the literacy rate in their respective patches simply to please the authorities in Jakarta.
Director General of External Education, Youth and Sports Soedijarto said that this practice is hampering the government's drive to eradicate poverty and ignorance.
Soedijarto said on Saturday that he has ordered his staff to thoroughly test the accuracy of every report coming from the regions about the number of people who are illiterate.
"It is common knowledge that lower-level staff tend to give pleasing but dishonest information to their superiors in order to win praise," Soedijarto told reporters during a press briefing about the preparations for the commemoration of International Literacy Day.
Some of the reports his office receives from the regions about the illiteracy rate often do not jibe with the figures presented by the Central Bureau of Statistics, he said.
The government has repeatedly boasted about Indonesia's success in eradicating illiteracy, yet the United Nations Education and Science Organization (Unesco) in its 1993 yearbook ranks Indonesia sixth among countries with the greatest illiteracy rates in the world. The UN agency put the illiteracy rate at 11.6 percent of Indonesia's population above 15 years of age.
International Literacy Day falls on Sept. 8 of each year. It was decided at the 1966 Unesco conference in Tehran.
The Ministry of Education and Culture is organizing a series of events in connection with this, which will reach its peak on Sept. 22 in the West Kalimantan city of Pontianak.
Success
Soedijarto said West Kalimantan has been chosen because it has had remarkable success in eradicating illiteracy. The West Kalimantan Education Office, with the support of the people and provincial government, has also been attributed for its vigorous drive to promote education in the province.
Among the activities connected with the activities will include reading and writing competitions, seminars on eradication of illiteracy, exhibitions and distribution of leaflets and stickers at the national and local levels, he said.
Indonesia's own ambitious campaign to make the nation "illiteracy-free" in the coming five years is targeted at people in the age 10 - 44 years age brackets.
The campaign oversees eradication of ignorance of the Latin alphabet and numbers, Bahasa Indonesia and basic knowledge.
The program is carried out by means of group-tutoring lessons by government institutions, non-governmental organizations and experts.
The program, however, has been facing difficulties in obtaining tutors, facilities and motivating illiterate people to learn. (pwn)