The lockdown in our
province actually began in April 2020.
Schools and universities had to close.
There was a sense of panic, of fear and confusion.
I was very concerned for my child's schooling and,
of course, other children's learning and schooling.
If this continued,
some children will lose all these foundational skills
that they had developed prior to the pandemic.
I am Sri, I am a provincial manager.
of INOVASI. A partnership for basic education between the Australian government
and the Indonesian government managed by the Palladium International.
Basic literacy and numeracy skills are the foundation of all other learning.
And that's to a certain extent the foundation of one's self confidence
and sense of self-worth and you know, how they go in preparing the future life.
Our baseline data in 2018 tells us that only one third
of our early graders understand what they read.
The issue is in teachers lack of skills in teaching basic literacy and numeracy.
They're not yet well equipped to do this.
There was an eye opening and moments of reflection to all,
including the teacher training universities, that we are
in a learning crisis. From that realization the university people and the NGOs
and also the government begin to realise that they need to change their curriculum
because it's still quite removed from the reality in the classroom.
Last year, when the university closed,
most students went back to their village to do learning from home.
And so that's how the literacy volunteers idea emerged.
One of the university administrators contacted us requesting
support to train their students on the basics of teaching reading.
We thought that this could be an opportunity to provide
immediate and individual support to children during the pandemic,
especially for those with very little or no digital learning access
and who have serious learning difficulties even before a pandemic.
So we took the materials from universal literacy training materials
developed prior to the pandemic and adapted to suit the volunteers need.
Teaching is like swimming, you know, I think you just have to be
in the water a lot.
The volunteers program is just like that.
You know students get exposure in getting into the water.
We have so many great volunteers.
They say it prepares them for being a schoolteacher,
improves the motivation to work and help children and make them understand
the actual situation in the classroom or in the schools even better.
I became a literacy volunteer myself
because I was inspired by the literacy volunteers.
Ozil is a child that I'm supporting.
He is in grade two.
He has a difficult life with both parents working in different parts
of the province, and he's left with his grandmother, who sometimes gets sick.
To be honest, I miss teaching.
I started out as a primary school teacher myself.
I love interacting with children because, you know, it
somehow brings out the child in me.
I can be silly and I can laugh like that.
And the sense that a teacher gets when their students get it
is quite a reward in itself.
We close the session by talking about what he's learned
and appreciate any progress.
We write that appreciation in little notes that we put in
a used plastic bottle that we fill in every end of the session.
It's like a piggy bank, but not for money, but for good words.
I'd like to think it's worth as much, if not more than, you know, the coins,
the pennies, although I don't think the children agree for now.
And so the students compare and contrast the curriculum that they receive
from the university and the training that they receive from INOVASI.
And they report it to us and also to their lecturers that they think
that what they receive from INOVASI was so practical and useful
and that they should be getting something
similar, something as practical at the university.
This literacy volunteers program is really what triggered the actual
change in the curriculum.
I hope that at the
end, more and more children will have the foundational skills
and the well-being and the preparedness they need for a better future.