Jakarta. Tanoto Foundation, the philanthropic organization founded by business magnate Sukanto Tanoto, recently held a podcast on how to boost a child’s numeracy and literacy skills.

The podcast was in collaboration with Parentalk, a digital content creator for parents and families.

The 2023 national assessment showed that 39 percent of Indonesia’s elementary school students still lack basic literacy skills. The figure is higher at 54 percent when it comes to numeracy skills. According to educational expert Galih Sulistyaningra, teachers should not bear the responsibility of teaching students literacy and numeracy skills alone.

“So it is not just the Indonesian language or mathematics teacher that is responsible for teaching literacy and numeracy. But all teachers, including parents and other stakeholders, bear the same responsibility,” Galih, who earned a master’s degree in educational planning at University College London, said at the podcast that is available on Tanoto Foundation’s YouTube channel.

According to Galih, basic literacy and numeracy skills are not limited to learning numbers and one’s ABCs, but kids ought to comprehend how they work. They also lay the foundation for one’s ability to read, write, and count. Galih then gave some tips on how parents could nurture a child’s literacy skills from a young age.

“There is something called ‘print awareness’. You [parents] can start by [teaching] symbols or images by reading pictures [through illustrated storybooks]. … Even if there is writing, you can read the pictures. In early childhood books, you usually find bigger pictures and they usually tell a story,” Galih said.

Numeracy today is still associated with complex mathematical abilities. Galih said: “We can teach numeracy with a technique called one-to-one correspondence. Don't just teach number symbols. We have to teach with concrete objects. 'One' is one thing, 'two' is two things. "So children get used to it, if the number gets bigger, the number gets bigger.”

Literacy and numeracy skills must be built not only by learning to read letters but also through seeing, listening, speaking and writing skills. All of this is built through intense interaction with teachers and parents at home. Teachers also need to be creative to get students excited about learning.

Many Indonesian schools have what they call “reading corners” for students to read books. However, what usually happens is students are only interested in the reading corner for the first few weeks. That is why teachers need to take advantage of e-books rather than solely relying on printed books, according to Galih. The Education Ministry has uploaded a number of digital books on the Indonesian Book Information System (SIBI) platform which can be accessed for free by students and teachers. English reading books are available for free on platforms such as Letsreadasia.org. The Education Ministry has also partnered with Tanoto Foundation to develop the Fun Creative Mathematics Teacher (Gureamatiks) system scheme -- something that teachers can try to keep their numeracy classes interesting.

Public figure Sophie Navita said that discipline was pivotal to teaching literacy and numeracy. At 3 years old, children should already be introduced to letters and numbers, for example, by asking them to count from 1 to 10. Discipline is needed so children can listen attentively when their parents are teaching. Sophie said: "For example, today it could only be 5 seconds, tomorrow it could be longer, progressing every day.”

Tanoto Foundation has been seeking to help the country improve its students’ literacy and numeracy skills, among others, through the PINTAR program (Development of Innovation for Learning Quality). In this program, the organization seeks to improve basic education in Indonesia by improving the quality of learning and school leadership by training teachers and school principals, providing technical assistance to local governments, and improving the quality of education for prospective teachers.

The Tanoto Foundation is also working alongside the Education Ministry to help promote the government’s “Quality Reading Books for Indonesian Literacy” campaign. To this end, both sides are distributing books that have been previously curated by the Language Development and Development Agency.

A total of 156 book titles or 76,752 books were distributed in 12 districts in Indonesia, namely Asahan, Karo, Kendal, Tegal, West Kutai, Kutai Kartanegara, Paser, Tebo, Batanghari, Muaro Jambi, Siak and Kampar. The ministry and the Tanoto Foundation also train teachers in using reading materials as a more effective learning support tool.