Long-term SEEDS partner Yayasan Tunas Aksara (YTA) works through its Saya Suka Membaca program (SSM) to work for a future where all Indonesian children have the opportunity to learn to read with fluency and understanding, and to love reading.

A key part of its strategy lies in building long-term relationships with schools, education departments and front-line community groups, creating opportunities to measure the impact that using the SSM method and curriculum materials has on children’s learning. This is important to demonstrate that SSM is effective, and to allow the team to continue to improve their methods.

In the 2024-2025, YTA’s team in Kupang ran a year-long partnership with the local education partnership to equip twelve teachers of Grade 1 classes in local schools. In August 2024, before the program began, the team conducted baseline tests with 221 children in classes receiving the intervention. They also tested another 206 children in similar “control” schools which were not receiving the intervention in order to compare the progress of the two groups. The two groups were tested again in May 2025, and the SSM team went to work analysing the data.

So how much did the children learn?   The graph below shows the scores of Control and Treatment students at baseline. The results are broadly similar,  with a median scores of 14% for both groups. 

By the time of the endline test, the two groups look quite different:

While the scores of students in both groups have improved, the students receiving the intervention have improved by much more than those in the control group. The mean score of students taught with SSM improved by 16 % more than those in control schools, and their median score increased by 28% more.

So what does this mean? These are very significant gains. The 16% improvement in mean score is an effect size of 0.58 standard deviations, which ranks among the most impactful literacy interventions. And the results are robust (p < 0.001) – meaning that it is highly unlikely that these results happened by chance.

In short, the package of Saya Suka Membaca curriculum, books, training and mentoring had a highly significant impact on the reading progress students made in their first year of primary school – progress that we trust will unlock greater progress across the whole range of subjects that students study in the years ahead.

Congratulations YTA – keep up the good work!

You can learn more about the work of Yayasan Tunas Aksara and the Saya Suka Membaca program on Instagram and YouTube @sayasukamembaca or at sayasukamembaca.org.