In recent years, Indonesia has faced a serious issue that could impact the country's education and growth, which is a literacy emergency. A literacy emergency is a condition where the literacy rate is extremely low, indicating that a lot of people lack the ability to read, write, count, and understand information that is effective for use in daily life. According to the PISA report in 2022, Indonesia's score in reading is 359, while the global average is 476. In mathematics, the score is 366, while the global average is 472, and in science, it is 383 while the global average is 485. Indonesia is ranked 15th in all three categories from the bottom out of 81 countries. According to a UNESCO report in 2012, the Indonesian literacy rate is only 0.001%, which means that only 1 of 1000 people has reading interest.
There are many reasons why literacy is very important. First, literacy is very important to develop basic skills such as reading, counting, communicating, collaborating, and many others. Second, literacy is also important because we can get a lot of knowledge from reading and communicating. Third, it can optimize our brain for writing, listening, counting, etc. And lastly, literacy is also important for stimulating our brain to imagine something, that makes us more creative, like when we read a novel we can imagine it and even make it to become a movie.
Related to this, there are many reasons why Indonesia's literacy rate is very low. First, Indonesian people usually only read as a hobby, not as a habit. Second, Indonesian people are also too lazy to read and don't like reading, because they like entertainment more. Third, education in Indonesian is not enough, which is comparable to Indonesia's literacy rate. Fourth, Indonesian people only know that literacy is only reading, but according to PISA literacy, literacy is reading, science, and math (counting), while according to the World Literacy Foundation, literacy is the ability to read, write, speak, and listen. Last, the amount of hoaxes in Indonesia is making Indonesian people lose interest in literacy, especially reading.
The impact of low literacy rate makes it hard to do basic things, hard to learn new things, has a difficulty to read and write, not creative, unable to think critically, have difficulty to communicate, have difficulty imagining, hard to get a job, hard to collaborate with others, easy to get swallowed by hoaxes, be antisocial, and many others.
To overcome the problem of low literacy in Indonesia, many things can be done, such as finding a novel or something to read that you like, making a schedule to read every day and do it regularly, joining a reading community, optimizing communication skills by joining any community or club, searching something every time we know something new so that we can have new knowledge and practice critical thinking skills, being a person with high curiosity. The government should make a program to increase the literacy rate, like something that is run right now like Asesmen Kompetensi Minimum (AKM), moving library (Perpustakaan Berjalan), making a competition for the students, and also making a literacy program by reading a book for 15 minutes every morning. The government also needs to make sure that not only reading skills need to be improved but also writing, listening, science, math, critical thinking skills, communication skills, collaboration skills, and creativity.
The conclusion is that literacy is very important to everyone, not only for children but also for adults. That is why Indonesian people really need to improve their literacy to be able to follow the development of the world. The Indonesian people need to participate in repairing the literacy rate as one nation and state based on unity.
Sources :
https://gpseducation.oecd.org/CountryProfile?primaryCountry=IDN&treshold=10&topic=PI
https://literacyforallinstruction.ca/communication/
https://www.kominfo.go.id/content/detail/10862/teknologi-masyarakat-indonesia-malas-baca-tapi-cerewet-di-medsos/0/sorotan_media
https://worldliteracyfoundation.org/literacy-beyond-reading-writing/