Izni Shafirannisa

17 DC
1202617043
CIAPIE's Final Exam

THE LACK OF INDONESIA'S LITERACY ESSAY

BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT

In the past 20 century era, literacy has become an important thing to be paid attention to,
especially in the education field. Based on the data from the World's Most Literate Nations that
was conducted by Central Connecticut State University, United States of America (2017),
Indonesia ranks 60th out of 61 survey participating countries in terms of literacy skills. The
results of the 2016 Indonesian National Assessment Program conducted by the Education
Research Center (Puspendik) of the Ministry of Education & Culture revealed the average
national distribution of literacy data in reading abilities of students in Indonesia was 46.83% in
the Less Category, only 6.06% category Good, and 47.11 Enough categories (P. Kemdikbud,
2017). From the data we can conclude that there is a problem that should be paid attention to,
and there is still a gap between literacy and Indonesia's education. Thus, the writer chose to bring
this topic to be discussed.

TOPIC
The lack of literacy skills in Indonesia.

PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION
The variant problems that cause Indonesia to have a lack of literacy skills.

FOCUS QUESTIONS
1. What is the current condition of Indonesia's literacy?
2. How are Indonesia's efforts in improving literacy skills?

JUSTIFICATION
The writer assumes that Indonesia's literacy is still below the average and has to be improved.

PURPOSES
1. To define the current condition of Indonesia's literacy.
2. To explain Indonesia's efforts in improving literacy skills.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Literacy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, and
compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. (UNESCO,
2004). Literacy also involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve their
goals, develop their knowledge and potential, and participate fully in their community and
broader society. (Montoya, 2018).

METHODS OF GATHERING DATA

By using variants secondary data from
1. Journal Articles
2. Websites
3. Report

DISCUSSION
Literacy has become an integral part of humans' skills and the world's development. It is
supported by UNESCO since they first formed literacy in 1946 and declared its mission
statement, "UNESCO is at the forefront of global literacy efforts and is dedicated to keeping
literacy high on national, regional and international agendas." (Wagner, 2013). Shortly,
UNESCO is the most responsible world organization of literacy's development. It also impacts
the education field that makes this field increasing rapidly; as stated by Max Roser and Esteban
Ortiz-Ospina (2016), from a historical perspective, literacy levels for the world population have
risen drastically in the last couple of centuries. While only 12% of the world's people could read
and write in 1820, today the share has reversed: only 14% of the world population, in 2016,
remained illiterate. Over the last 65 years, the global literacy rate increased by 4% every five
years - from 42% in 1960 to 86% in 2015. It concludes that the development of literacy is
multiplying. Literacy itself, not only about how we can read or write something, but it is also
about how we are mastering something and know how to solve or fix it when we get some
problems. Recently, world citizens are paying attention to this massive thing because we think it
is vital to be updated and paid attention. This globalization era is also essential if the world
citizens are becoming literate humans because we can think critically to avoid adversity.

According to Frankel et al. (2016), they redefine literacy's principles and offer new
explanations in light of what they now know from reading's principles by Anderson et al. (1985)
in their report "Becoming a Nation of Readers: The Report of the Commission on Reading" into
literacy with five points; (1) literacy is a constructive, integrative, and critical process situated in
social practices; (2) language processes and contexts shape fluent reading; (3) literacy is strategic
and disciplinary; (4) literacy entails motivation and engagement; and (5) literacy is a
continuously developing set of practices. Along with the times, we have to stay updated about
literacy, which continues to grow into many parts; computer, vernacular, digital, visual, school,
media, health, emotional, cultural, moral literacy (Kapur, 2019). Based on PISA's Results data
(2018) about Indonesia's current literacy condition, Indonesian students scored lower than the
OECD average in reading, mathematics, and science. (F. Avvisati et al., 2019). It means
Indonesia is one of the lowest-literate world nations. If we compare it with the OECD's standard,
a small proportion of Indonesian pupils perform at the highest proficiency level (Level 5 or 6 in
at least one subject). Simultaneously, a smaller proportion, Indonesian students also attain the
minimum level of ability (Level 2 or higher in at least one subject). It can be justified that
Indonesia has some problems in developing education, especially in reading or literacy skills.
There are variant issues about the lack of its literacy based on OECD's data in education
at a glance; (1) Indonesia is one of the countries which enrolled many more 15-year-olds in
secondary education without sacrificing the quality of the education provided in between 2003
and 2018. The writer thinks it might be because of the social-economic condition and the low-
educated Indonesian parents, so they have just enrolled their children in any schools without
some considerations. The reason for passion for reading skills is the motivation we get from
teaching and learning activities in school. However, tertiary-educated families also have some
problems related to it and make students lack motivation. One of those is (2) About half of the
countries. There is no statistically significant difference by parents' educational attainment in the
percentage of 15-year-old students who report being bullied a few times a month. In Brazil,
Indonesia, Mexico, the Russian Federation, and Saudi Arabia, students from tertiary-educated
families are more likely to report being bullied (OECD, 2020). The writer thinks this is one of
the causes of the lack of students' learning motivation connected with Indonesia's reading and
literacy skills. (3) Indonesian students' other problem is that they are used to a simple discourse
with an assessment or a simple or frequent form of questions termed low-order thinking (Lilik,
2020). In this case, the writer thinks the book's writer and arranger should mix between a low
order thinking and a high order thinking question to improve students' literacy skills.
Widiningsih (2019) explained that discourse and assessment oriented high order thinking would
lead to the process of building skills in many things: 1) transfer of one concept to another, 2)
processing and integrating information, 3) find links from a variety of different information, 4)
use information to solve problems and 5) critically examine ideas and information. Thus, HOTS
questions test thinking skills to analyze, evaluate, and create. To induce utilized to it, it takes
time to induce utilized to it from an early age or elementary school has become a need. It implies
that expanding perusing aptitudes must be bolstered by excellent reading culture and the writer’s
justification proves correct.

CONCLUSION
Literacy is an essential world thing in this last century that should be paid attention to.
Indonesia itself is one of the countries that already take part in its development, especially
literacy development. The governments and we are still trying to give our best in decreasing the
lack of Indonesia's literacy in many ways. As a future educator, we should stay updated and
make an updated innovation in improving Indonesia's literacy skills to compete with global
citizens.

IMPLICATION
There are variants of Indonesia's efforts to minimize Indonesia's illiteracy; (1) One of the
elements of change in the 2013 curriculum is strengthening the learning process and high-level
thinking, but there are still many teachers who do not understand this. The teacher should still be
able to develop and convert learning from Lower Order Thinking Skill (LOTS) to Higher Order
Thinking Skill (HOTS), and it must have started since designing the Learning Implementation
Plan (RPP) (Fanani & Kusmaharti, 2018). One of the things that can be seen is the reading
quality, the learning experience, and the problem. In general, the questions still focused on the
factual questions that students assigned to figuring out: what, who, when, where, does not get to
what happened, why it happened, what happens if… and so on. There is very little reading for
grades 4-6 SD to present maps, graphs, and tables. The question is still textual and visual on
maps, graphs, and tables have not yet arrived at interpreting the data behind data visualization.
Meanwhile, the PISA questions, PIRLS, and EGRA instruments are in the form of HOTS
questions. Harsiati explained that PISA reading literacy questions have the characteristic of
focusing on higher-order thinking skills in terms of the measured reading competency aspect. On
the PISA reading questions. There are three types of reading competency aspects, which include:
(a) the ability to express retrieving information (retrieving information), (b) developing an
interpretation (developing an interpretation), (c) reflects and evaluates the text (Harsiati, 2018).
(2) Indonesia's adults pay attention to their tertiary-educated. OECD states that the share of ages
25-34 with tertiary degrees also increased between 2009 and 2019 across all OECD and partner
countries. This increased share implies a decrease in the share of young adults who do not have
it. In most countries, there has been a reduction in younger adults with less than senior secondary
or post-secondary or non-tertiary education as their highest achievement. However, Indonesia is
one of the countries' numbers of young adults with tertiary education. The percentage of those
with senior secondary or post-secondary education is their highest attainment. (3) They also pay
attention to the education fields. It is proven by many of Indonesia's college students who take
the education program, based on the OECD's statement, in most OECD countries, the largest
percentage of graduates in all higher education programs complete degrees in business,
administration, and law, with a few exceptions. In 2018, an average of 25% of students were
tertiary graduates that year obtaining a degree in this broad field in OECD countries, although
this ranges from 15% in Korea to 46% in Colombia. In Korea, the most popular fields among
tertiary graduates are engineering, manufacturing, and construction; in Belgium, Finland,
Norway, and Sweden, it is health and wellness; in India, it is a social science, information,
journalism; and Indonesia is education. (OECD, 2020). It concludes that Indonesia's citizens are
trying to take a role in improving Indonesia's education development.

REFERENCES
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