World Bank representative, Andrew Steer, even stated that 49% or 108 million of people in Indonesia live in poor condition, that is with income less than $2. If we take a closer look at the data on the connection between education and poverty according to the 2004 National Social and Economic Survey (Susenas Kor 2004) 41,67% of the poor did not graduate and 38,36% did graduate from Elementary School. It means that most of the poor have low level of education (80,03%). The number of poor people in villages is higher than in cities thus education in villages faces a serious challenge.
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The Reality of Village Education Concern
One day I was at the foot of Mt. Merbabu and had a chance to visit a kindergarten in a small village. The kindergarten was held in a class of a elementary school there with shabby brown wooden chairs. The teacher was teaching the children to read, write and count just like the way in teaching elementary students. |
It was more concerning that the teacher was a middle school graduate and never had a pedagogy background. Whereas a kindergarten is very much needed because it has a role to plant important basics for the sake of the holistic development of a child.
This is what is called a ‘golden period’ for children character building. Dr. Paul Meier, a Christian psychiatrist, says a child’s character is 85% formed by the age of 6. Other research by Benjamin S. Bloom, Ph.D, strengthened this opinion. Bloom stated that 50% of child’s potential would be formed until the child reaches the age of 5 and other 30% would be formed until the age of 8. Nevertheless, when we look at the number of preschools in Indonesia, they only serve some of the early age children. |
