Saya Suka Membaca (SSM) is a literacy program run by a nonprofit organization ‘Yayasan Tunas Aksara’. The curriculum is designed to be picked up and used by the average Indonesian teacher with little teacher training, as is often the case in rural areas. Its premises are simplicity, spiraling repetition, and multi-modal engagement for the students. In short, the program was designed to help teachers make literacy learning accessible and fun.
Until now SSM had not tried to measure its impact due to capacity issues. Then last year, we started measuring impact through a quasi-experimental random controlled trial in Kupang (in East Indonesia). Eight schools in the rural outskirts of Kupang were chosen to run the SSM curriculum and matched with eight “sister schools” that served as a control group (these schools are scheduled to receive the SSM curriculum this year). Only first grade students were taught and measured. Below are some of our preliminary findings:
- Schools using the SSM curriculum outperformed schools using the national curricula by a moderate 15% in terms of end-of-year progress. Some major factors that prevent the differential from being higher were:
- Low teacher pay that forces teachers to take second (or even third) jobs;
- Competing administrative duties that result in teacher absences;
- Parents / guardians are often too busy to help children learn at home
- SSM teachers reported high satisfaction with the materials provided. When asked how the product could be improved, the general consensus was that SSM should be continuous through second and even third grade.
- SSM teachers report strong (but unfruitful) efforts to help students with learning difficulties. This indicates that we need to look at how we can make provision for this in future planning.
- The research team still has lots of material to examine. We hope to uncover more granular data that will help us make improvements to better serve outlier children. While there is no sense sacrificing the good for the perfect, we work to help all Indonesian children learn to read, because reading is the beginning of everything.
