Civil servants told to help fight illiteracy

The East Lombok administration, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), will require prospective and ambitions civil servants to teach reading and writing to illiterate people, in a move to fight the high illiteracy rate without drawing heavily on the regency budget.

“We have more than 13,000 civil servants in East Lombok. They all must involve themselves in the program. We have prepared the regulation,” East Lombok Regent Sukiman Azmy said.

In 2008 the regency had 56,000 illiterate people aged over 15. The figure dropped to 30,000 in 2010, following the implementation of the government’s illiteracy elimination program (Absano), which began in 2009. The program reaches 20 districts in East Lombok.

Sukiman said the Absano program, launched by the NTB provincial administration in 2009, was not effective enough to eliminate the high number of illiterates in the regency.

“By involving civil servants we can eliminate illiteracy more effectively and no additional funding is needed,” he said, adding that he was optimistic that illiteracy could be completely eliminated in the regency by the end of this year.

Civil servants seeking promotions or raises would be obliged to teach reading and writing to a minimum of two illiterate persons for 32 days in the year. Those applying to become civil servants would be obliged to teach a minimum of 10 illiterate persons.

“We have made this as a prerequisite,” Sukiman said.

The program, he added, would involve the regency Employment Agency, the Education Agency and the province’s 20-district administrations.

Sugiandi Bakri, a civil servant, said he welcomed the program. He said that in addition to helping eliminate illiteracy in the region, the program would help encourage the spirit of serving among civil servants.

“This could be a challenge for us as we have to help others to read and write first if we want a promotion and a salary increase,” Sugiandi said.

NTB is notorious for having a high illiteracy rate, ranking 32 out of the nation’s 33 provinces on the human development index.

The province reported that it had more than 321,000 illiterate people aged over 15 last year.

That figure is less than the 2008 number of 417,000.

Many, however, have expressed concern about the high cost of fighting illiteracy.

An illiteracy program costing Rp 34 billion from the state and provincial budget, for example, taught 95,650 people to read and write, from its target of 108,000 people.

The program involved community learning activity centers and local NGOs as partners.

Each group of 10-15 learners and a tutor was given Rp 3.6 million for 32 classes. It therefore costs the administration more than Rp 355,000 to put one student through 32 classes.

Coordinator of Yayasan Tunas Alam Indonesia’s NTB branch, Juharis, said the program did not accommodate the aspirations of the illiterate people.

“In practice people join the program more because of the transport fees of Rp 5,000 per person per meeting,” he said.