Menkominfo Johnny G. Plate Asks All Parties To Support Limited Face-to-Face Learning

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The government asks all parties to support the implementation of limited face-to-face learning (PTM), which is increasingly important and urgent to prevent Indonesia's young generation from decreasing learning outcomes, learning loss.

"Accelerating the completion of vaccinations for educators and education personnel (PTK) can be an impetus to return children to school on a limited basis," said Minister of Communications and Information, Johnny G. Plate, in a press statement, quoted from Antara, Saturday, September 18.

Limited PTM is an effort to save Indonesian children from the risk of the long-term negative impact of Distance Learning (PJJ). If we don't immediately implement limited face-to-face meetings, it is feared that this generation will find it very difficult to catch up.

Kominfo assessed that prolonged PJJ could have a major and permanent impact on students. The highly anticipated impacts include dropping out of school, decreasing learning achievement, and mental and psychological health of children.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a very significant learning loss. If left unchecked in the long term, all of this could be a greater risk than health risks," said Johnny.

Based on research by INOVASI and the Center for Policy Research (Puslitjak), the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology, education in Indonesia has lost 5-6 months of learning per year. World Bank research also states, within a period of 0.8 to 1.3 years, compounded learning loss with the gap between rich students and poor students increased by 10 percent.

The same research also states that the dropout rate in Indonesia increased by 1.12 percent, which is 10 times the 2019 primary school dropout rate. The World Bank estimates that currently in Indonesia there are 118,000 elementary school age children who are not in school.

This figure, according to Johnny, is five times more than the number of children dropping out of elementary school in 2019.