Building Vision, Driving Literacy

Reading is one of the basic skills that are important for every child to master other knowledge. However, what happens if many children turn out to be far behind their appropriate child? This condition has occurred in several areas in Indonesia, one of which is in the Landak Regency, West Kalimantan.

A survey conducted by Wahana Visi Indonesia (WI) in 2021 stated that 49.5% of grade 3 elementary school children in 28 schools were not yet skilled at reading. Buyung as Secretary of the Landak Regency Education and Culture Office also confirmed this finding.

“This data is true. This is just a school that we consider good, especially if it is in the interior, it may be even worse, although we do not deny that the pandemic (the result) is very influential," explained Buyung.

To reduce the low literacy rate, cooperation from various elements of society is needed. One of them is by strengthening the leadership and managerial leadership of the principal. The principal is given the authority to manage the available resources both in terms of human resources and budget to achieve quality student learning outcomes. In addition, the principal also plays a role in evaluating student learning outcomes and supervising teachers, so that the role of educators becomes more optimal.

The fact is that the principal's leadership is dynamic because it must answer to the needs of each school so the principal's leadership and managerial skills must always be improved.

Therefore, through the Mobilizing Organization Program (POP), WVI in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Education and Culture Office of Landak Regency provides leadership and managerial competency development to 28 principals of the assisted schools. One of the participants who took part in this training was Turyanto (49)

Turyanto has been a school principal for more than 11 years. This kind of training became a rare moment for him and the other principals.

“I only participated in this kind of school principal training in 2013, when the principal was selected, after that never again. The new thing I got today is the creation of a vision and mission. Previously, I made the school's vision long and difficult to achieve. Through this training, you will know how to create a simple but measurable vision. Through this training, we are also helped on how to move the teachers, let alone see the results of reading data at my school,” he said.

"Creating Faithful, Intelligent, and Disciplined Learners" is the current vision of the Turyono school. He is also determined to fix the reading corner, provide reading lessons, and provide supervision to classroom teachers as a form of his commitment to achieving his school's vision.

The presence of POP in the Landak Regency is expected to contribute to filling the gap in the limited competence improvement for educators and school principals, especially in the 3T area. Through the briefings provided, they will make a real contribution to improving student learning outcomes in Landak Regency.

Written by: Fenny Samosir, Education Coordinator of POP Landak Wahana Visi Indonesia