West Kalimantan provincial administration is intensifying the development of 216 community learning centers (PKBM) and 169 public libraries across the province to help fight illiteracy and reduce the dropout rate, Jakarta Post reported.
In 2011, data from the West Kalimantan education agency saw that the number of illiterates accounted for 155,592 of the province’s entire population of 5.3 million.
“Many school-age children are not able to go to school because they have to work to help their parents, to support their families,” said West Kalimantan Deputy Governor Christiandy Sanjaya.
He said the education programs in the province were also hampered by the lack of commitment among regental or mayoralty administrations in scaling back funding on education.
West Kalimantan education agency head Alex Akim said the province’s illiteracy rate was considered to be in the medium category, as it was less than 5 percent.
Akin said the provincial administration had set a target to help 6,000 residents improve their literacy skills by the end of 2012.
To achieve the target, Akim said his agency was collaborating with volunteers at the family welfare movement (PKK), university students undergoing national study service scheme (KKN) activities and activists from some NGOs.
This year, Akim went on, the administration has allocated around Rp 3 billion (US$311,000) to eliminate illiteracy in the province.
M. Sudarno, a lawmaker at the West Kalimantan Legislative Council (DPRD) Kalimantan Barat, expressed his concern over the illiteracy issue, saying that the administration was considered to only have put forward physical development and it had put aside the human resources development.
“In this era, how come there are still many people who cannot read out there?” said Sudarno.
Today, he continued, there is no reason for children to be unable to go to school since the administration has established schools under the one-roof-system school, merging elementary and junior high school’s into one.
The administration has built such schools in many remote areas of the province to provide education for children who used to not be able to go to school due to the distance between their homes and school.
Besides eliminating illiteracy, the administration is also working out how to reduce the drop-out rate.
The drop-out rate in the region is mainly caused by lack of awareness among parents about the importance of education and lack of proper education facilities.
This year, as of early November, 4,261 of 794,874 elementary school students reportedly dropped out of school, while 2,201 students of the total 251,207 junior high school students, failed to complete their studies.
“It is normal if children help their parents, but the children have their right to go to school and get a proper education,” said Sudarno.