Literacy classes keep adults minds’ sharp

Asiah was speechless when she found out that she had accidentally signed an agreement allowing her husband to marry another woman.

“I didn’t know what the letter really said. I couldn’t read then,” the 49-year-old housewife said with a grim face, adding that she had suspected that her husband might have been having an affair because he often received messages on his mobile phone late at night.

Reflecting on that experience, Asiah told The Jakarta Post that she had known then that she should start to learn to read and write.

“I couldn’t be happier when I met volunteers from a nearby community learning center in mid-2009 who offered me free classes to learn reading and writing,” she said.

Asiah attended the literacy program organized by Bina Mandiri Cipageran, which was supported by the National Education Ministry, from July to August 2009. There she learned how to read and write.

However, her newfound skills soon began to fade because she did not have any means to practice what she had learned on a daily basis.

Her 65-year-old classmate Enog shared a similar story.

“It’s been more than a year since the last time I really used my reading and writing skills in 2009. I’ve been busy breeding my cattle. I don’t need those skills to breed them,” Enog told the Post recently at her home in Cimahi, West Java.

She added that she wanted to relearn reading and writing because when she was literate she had been able to understand paperwork from her local medical clinic, and when she was informed that she could receive direct cash assistance from the government.

Asiah and Enog are just two of many newly literates whose skills began to deteriorate soon after their education ended, due to limited access to tutoring and reading materials.

Elih Sudipermana, head of the ministry’s learning and education participants body, previously reported that at least 30 percent of the 660,000 students who were supported by the ministry through illiteracy eradication programs in 2009 regressed because of a lack of post-literacy education and poor management.

Aan Anasih Nawakarana, chief of the Bina Mandiri Cipageran community learning center, said that a literacy program at her school would run for six months, which was not enough for someone to master reading and writing, unless post-programs were available.

“We rarely initiate sustainable programs because of the limited money the government shares with us. Limited learning materials and the student’s low interest in learning make the effort even harder,” she said.

However, Aan said that she realized that she could not depend on the government’s support to keep her learning center running.

“We are only an informal learning center. The government cannot even support all of the formal educational institutions all around the country. How can we expect that it will take care of us?” she said, adding that most of the 1,613 centers in West Java bore faced similar problems.

Therefore, she and her colleagues recently designed a program in which 60 students, most of them women, use their reading and writing skills to learn to cook and make handicrafts.

“For example, we introduce new recipes during our cooking class. Participants must first write the recipes in their notebooks and then read them aloud before cooking. In this way, they are forced to keep using their reading and writing skills,” Aan said, adding that food and handicrafts would then be sold to earn money to support the center.

Another community learning center, Pademangan 04, based in North Jakarta, is also struggling to survive due to limited financial support. The government has allocated enough money to the center to educate 20 participants.

“However, we must not let financial issues hinder us. Therefore, we are organizing post-literacy classes to provide our students with skills, such as cooking or knitting, but in such a way that they are forced to read and write,” Yas’ida, one of the volunteers teaching at Pademangan community learning center, told the Post.

She added that her learning center was one of the 328 centers in Jakarta that would get support from the government to organize illiteracy eradication programs this year.

The National Education Ministry previously announced that it would allocate Rp 15 million (US$1,755) to each of the 550 organizations cooperating with the ministry to organize reading centers and Rp 25 million for each new sustainable development program.

It also said that it would allocate Rp 360,000 to each of the 550,000 of the existing 8.3 million illiterate people in the country that it will assist this year through its illiteracy eradication program. (msa)