Indonesia Mathematic Emergency! KOMPAS.com – It is unknown what has been done by the Ministry of Education and Culture (Kemendikbud), the provincial and district education offices in responding to the fact of low numeracy skills in the schools they manage, in addition to disbursing the Professional Allowance for Educators (TPP) this year which is more than Rp. 71 trillion in the State Budget, that has no significant impact on increasing teacher competency (De Ree et al, WB 2016). Moreover, when the skills are used as a benchmark for readiness to face the 21st century era and a recent study (Amanda et al, CFEE Annual Digest 2018) which states that Indonesian young people will be ready to face the 21st century, when the 31st century is approaching, because The study calculated that for many years from entering elementary school to graduating from high school, the school only increased the skills of arithmetic or simple arithmetic from students by zero point zero such percent. The results of the macro study are in line with the results of tests in a class at a high school in Central Kalimantan uploaded by a teacher (Rukim, 2018) in early September 2018. When the results of the study were discussed with colleagues on other islands and cities, the results were not much different. In conclusion, despite sitting in a science class, students are not skilled in completing simple operations “add, less, multiply and divide” including the notions of “percent”, tithes and fractions. In fact, the most basic operation of arithmetic, such as connecting letters to form words and sentences “i-ni bu-di …” in the context of reading and writing. One important note, namely eight years ago, it was reminded that this mathematical blindness emergency (Koran Tempo, 2008) by referring to the results of the PISA test (Program for International Student Assessment) and TIMSS (Trend for International Mathematics and Sciences Study) when ranked Indonesian students in grade 2 SMP / MTs are only one layer above African Botswana. Yes, Indonesia ranks second from the bottom! A totally blind mathematical condition, and they were predicted not to be ready for the 21st century. That writing is certainly only a small warning of an emergency, because there are quite a lot of other writings that warn a similar situation. But, it turns out it was considered quiet by the government who considered everything to be fine. Exponential transformation movement. The attitude of “Complacency” which considers an emergency problem like it was nothing is an omission and is a major sinful public crime. Exactly like letting someone known to smoke while refueling or letting their house environment be full of dengue mosquito larvae. Sadly, it is difficult to expect the improvement initiative to come from the government, especially if it follows the logic of the paper, that quality standards that meet new requirements are ready in the 31st century. For this reason, the change in skill improvement must start linearly with steep angles and immediately become a series of measurements or exponentials. The initiative must start from civil society organizations and together create a platform to share roles. It is not difficult to break it down, especially if we start by examining a number of National Education Standards (SNP), namely Graduates Competency Standards (SKL), Content Standards (SI) and Process Standards (SP) for Mathematic Subject in Elementary Schools to Junior High Schools. Once the bottle-neck is known from the study, we invite volunteers who understand basic arithmetic operations, with methods that can check the students’ skills from elementary to junior high school and look for problems that hinder their absorption of these subjects. Because it is called basic mathematics it should not be complicated, because it is visible in our daily lives. Shopping at the market or minimarket, motorcycle loans, buying meatballs, paying zakat, calculating daily debt to the market bank, and even sharing parental inheritance, all require basic math skills. Thus, those who have graduated from high school, even though they may forget, will surely find it easy to recall, especially those who graduated in the field of Engineering and Mathematics and Natural Sciences should still be skilled. This movement is difficult and will be massive, even measurable if it is not well designed. For this reason, every stakeholder involved must be mapped their roles, including those who are only able to contribute money, not skills. Money is very meaningful, but a movement requires more enthusiasm to share what is owned and of course the awareness of emergencies, both from the beneficiaries (teachers and students) or other stakeholders. The most difficult thing in rolling this movement into a snowball is convincing all stakeholders, especially parents (Sumintono, 2017) that the condition is a national emergency, because the “complacency” attitude is very difficult to change, and just as difficult to convince a flash flood if the forest in height is not maintained, except directly experienced yourself. But, the question is, will we wait for the coming of the 31st century before we cry out in the grave, ready for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren to face the 21st century?
This article has been published on Kompas.com with the title “Indonesia Darurat Matematika!”, https://edukasi.kompas.com/read/2018/09/24/07200071/indonesia-darurat-matematika.
Editor: Latief
