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.
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