The Bulungan Education and Culture Office (Dinas Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, or Disdikbud) must address this special situation due to the limited infrastructure. Based on the survey results by Disdikbud and INOVASI, it was found that 37 percent of primary schools in Bulungan did not have electricity and 47 percent did not have internet access.
The Head of the Bulungan Education and Culture Office, Jamaluddin Saleh, mobilized the Teacher Working Group (Kelompok Kerja Guru, or KKG) to train teachers in using a special curriculum in order to provide quality education services during the pandemic. The training and mentoring strategy was carried out in stages. The best principals, supervisors, and teachers were trained as facilitators. Upon completion, the facilitators trained other teachers in their respective clusters. This training was followed by intensive mentoring to ensure that the teachers would be able to use the special curriculum and can involve the parents in the learning process.
“We piloted the KKG-based training strategy from 2017 to 2019 to improve the reading skills of early grade students. As a result, we managed to cut the time for completing basic literacy competency from three years to two years,” said Jamaluddin Saleh.
In 2017, the Bulungan Education and Culture Office, with the support of INOVASI, developed an Early Grade Literacy Pilot program based on KKG training in seven elementary schools located in Tanjung Selor and Tanjung Palas Timur subdistricts. Two years into the pilot program, the number of students who passed the basic literacy test had increased. Previously, in December 2017, only 57 percent of students were able to recognize letters, syllables, and words; that number increased to 94 percent in November 2019. The success of this pilot program was then disseminated to 138 elementary schools spread across 24 clusters, involving 159 new facilitators and 262 teachers, and benefitting 9,135 students. These experiences and strategies are now being used once more in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The strategies that are used by the Bulungan Education and Culture Office are as follows.
Using a Special Curriculum
The Bulungan Education and Culture Office responded to the national policy as set forth in the Joint Ministerial decree (SKB) of four minister by using an emergency curriculum, or a curriculum for special conditions, in two ways; (1) facilitate a discussion at the Assessment and Learning Center (Pusat Asesmen dan Pembelajaran, or Pusmenjar) at the Research and Development and Book Agency (Balitbangbuk) to understand the core of an emergency curriculum and how to use it, and (2) require all of the schools and teachers to use the emergency curriculum at the elementary and junior high school levels.
Applying the Emergency Curriculum by Using a Successful KKG System
The same approach is used to ensure the quality of learning during the pandemic. The program to use emergency curriculum was initiated with a pilot program in six clusters that involved 18 facilitators, 30 schools, and 262 teachers. The experience from this pilot program will soon be disseminated to other 115 other elementary schools. This approach is expected to benefit 17,724 elementary school students in the Bulungan district.
Quality Assurance
The quality assurance process was carried out by a resource person from the Institute for Education Quality Assurance (Lembaga Penjaminan Mutu Pendidikan, or LPMP) North Kalimantan, who participated in the workshop to plan and monitor training activities at the cluster level.
Means of Strengthening Continuous Professional Development (CPD) and Learning Competency Improvement
KKG activities have become a means for teachers to carry out Continuous Professional Development (CPD) and Learning Competency Improvement. The entire KKG process is documented and monitored by the Bulungan Education and Culture Office. The certificate for the KKG-based training is jointly granted by the Bulungan Education and Culture Office and LPMP of North Kalimantan; therefore, the training hours will be acknowledged by the Credit Score Assessment Team (Penilai Angka Kredit, or PAK). This certificate can be used as an administrative proof of self-development.
During the pandemic, KKG-based training has provided even more benefits to the teachers. As an example, Pranika Dian Dini, a grade one teacher at SDN 008 Binai state elementary school in East Tanjung Palas subdistrict, is now more able to design teaching materials according to her students’ abilities. According to Dini, the new academic year 2020/2021 is very different. In this COVID-19 era, teachers must accept first grade students without meeting them face-to-face in class. These children must start their formal learning from home without meeting their teachers and peers. Moreover, many of the students aren’t able to read yet. This, of course, is a major challenge for the students, parents, and teachers.
“As a teacher, I had to figure out a way to overcome this challenge. Mapping the students’ reading skills provided a way out. From this mapping, now I know each student’s skill level. Based on this information, I have been able to design various Student Activity Sheets (Lembar Aktivitas Siswa, or LAS) to match their abilities,” explained Dini.
Dini said that using Student Activity Sheets (LAS) based on the students’ abilities has helped them to develop more quickly. One example is Mifta, a student who could only recognize 19 out of the 32 letters of the alphabet when she started first grade. Mifta does not have a study companion at home. Her father goes around the village selling meatballs from morning to evening, while her mother is illiterate. However, with reading assistance and the use of LAS adjusted to her reading ability, Mifta has been able to reach the level of reading comprehension within four months.