Government told to improve poor literacy rate

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Experts on education called for the government on Monday to improve the ability of students in reading, mathematics and science. They asked the government to focus on an educational policy that is appropriate to every day life and to speed up the realization of a minimum of 20 percent of the total state budget's allocation for education.

"At the moment students must read materials that are not really related to their life and immediate environment. Of course the students have difficulty understanding what they read as the information is not practical for them," education expert Winarno Surakhmat said.

The Rector of Jakarta's State University, Sutjipto, agreed with Winarno.

"Can you imagine many students still do not know the names of trees in their own streets? Students in the final year of elementary school in Jakarta can't understand what they read in the newspaper. There must be something wrong with the reading materials, the methodology of teachers or the school facilities," Sutjipto said.

According to him, if the education system was adequate, first year students of elementary school would be able to read and to understand newspapers in the Indonesian language.

He said the realization of an appropriate higher education budget was also essential in improving education in the country. An adequate budget would improve the quality of reading materials (possibly providing cheap books for students) and improve other facilities.

"Without such moves our students will be always left behind their peers from other countries ... ," he said.

Winarno and Sutjipto were commenting on the recent survey of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)'s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) which showed that Indonesian students scored relatively lowly in basic skills compared to their peers in other countries.

The survey stated that 38 percent of Indonesian students surveyed had serious difficulty in using reading as a tool to advance and extend their knowledge and skills in other areas, such as daily problem solving.

They couldn't comprehend information when it was presented in an unfamiliar format and showed a difficulty in understanding texts at the highest level of literacy.

Students in Finland were the world's best in terms of reading literacy, followed by South Korea, Hong Kong and Canada. The lowest results were scored in Albania, Indonesia and Peru.

The education system in Indonesia has been criticized by education experts for its failure to produce good teachers.

The lack of money in education and corruption have only exacerbated the poor condition of the system.

This year the government allocated Rp 13.6 trillion (US$1.56 billion) for education, an increase from 11.6 trillion in 2002.

However, the present budget for education is only 4 percent of the total state budget.

Article 31 (4) of the amended 1945 Constitution stipulates that the state should give priority to education by allocating a minimum of 20 percent of the total state and regional budgets to the cost of national education.