Data on illiteracy may be inaccurate
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)