'Lost generation' looms as NGO testing shows some Bali students fail to make the grade

DENPASAR, BALI - A survey of elementary school students conducted by a children's charity in remote parts of Bali and Lombok has raised fresh worries that 20 months of remote learning has wiped out more than a year of schooling, leaving some children all but illiterate despite years of formal schooling.

The survey, conducted by education non-profit organisation Bali Children Foundation (BCF) and shared with The Straits Times, covered more than 1,300 pupils entering grades two and three. It found that fewer than half of those entering their third year of elementary school had mastered core concepts from the previous year, including writing a simple sentence in Bahasa Indonesia or basic arithmetic.

BCF founder Margaret Barry said the results reflect the reality that many poor children outside the cities have had to endure as schools shut and lessons went online.

While remote learning amounted to a nuisance for city kids, for their counterparts in places such as Sidetapa, Nusa Lombangan or Gili Air who had scant access to the Internet, or to devices that could do little more than send instant chat messages, let alone relatives who graduated from high school, it meant their schooling ground to a halt.

Decades of work combating illiteracy and readying kids for work in Bali's US$10 billion (S$13.7 billion) a year tourism industry is at risk, the Australian native told The Straits Times.

"The whole purpose for us for 19 years was to get kids to stay in school and get skills that can help them get formal employment in the tourism sector and the formal sector more broadly," said Ms Barry, who set up her non-profit in 2002 in the aftermath of the Bali bombings which took 202 lives.

"Covid-19 has put an enormous obstacle in the way of these kids to get the literacy and numeracy they need for formal work."

The foundation, which promotes instruction in literacy, science and mathematics, conducted the survey at nearly two dozen elementary schools from July through September ahead of the return to in-person lessons.

The survey focused on the cohort of students that had been out of classroom learning the longest relative to their time in school. It covered the non-profit's areas of operation, including northern Bali, Nusa Lombangan, as well as the Gili Islands and northern Lombok.

It found that on average, only 49 per cent of children entering grade three in September had sufficiently mastered core elements of the curriculum from the previous year, including multiplication, writing and values over 100. On average, children entering grade two did better, with a score of 61 per cent.

The difference reflects the subjects taught in the second year of elementary school, when children in Bali are expected to master phonics, division and multiplication that requires closer teacher supervision, Ms Barry said.

Mr Ida Bagus Surya Bharata, secretary of the department of education, youth and sports in Buleleng Regency in northern Bali, which is home to a big chunk of schools where BCF operates, chalks up the results to ongoing Covid-19-related restrictions that limit face-to-face learning.

"Teachers and students aren't equipped for distance learning and there is no courage to start direct face-to-face learning. So we are losing learning and educational opportunities for students," Mr Bharata told The Straits Times.

"We are very worried about what happens if this goes on for much longer. If kids don't get a proper education, then we face the loss of a generation."

Tourism operators say they are already struggling to find skilled workers who can fill vacancies in senior positions left by executives who returned to home villages when business dried up and hotels cut salaries to stay afloat.

At the Four Points by Sheraton in Uluwatu, Mr Akmad Fadholi, the property's general manager, has been searching for a director of food and beverage, a front desk manager and a Jakarta-based head of sales and marketing since at least the middle of the year.

With eight meeting rooms and a conference room that has a capacity for 1,200, his property taps into the market for corporate and government off-sites and is well placed for any spillover business that could come from the more than 170 conferences planned next year during Indonesia's chairmanship of the G20.

Last week, Mr Akmad, who is better known as Byang, raised room rates by 18 per cent without losing any business. Occupancy now is just shy of 60 per cent - roughly where it was in 2019 before the pandemic hit.

The hotel funds internships and scholarships, including those administered by Ms Barry's BCF, to ensure that the property gets a steady supply of young and promising talent.

"This is something we're watching," he said, referring to the talent crunch.

To be sure, Indonesia tends to do poorly on scholastic assessments.

In the latest round of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Programme for International Student Assessment in 2018 that tests maths, science and reading skills of 15-year-olds from 79 countries, Indonesia's students placed in the bottom tier including a 74th-place ranking for reading.

The pandemic threatens to undo hard-won gains made in recent years, said Ms Barry, who set up BCF in part to promote education as a counterweight to religious extremism.

In 2007, 14 per cent of Balinese were illiterate, according to government data, but by 2020, that proportion had shrunk to 5.2 per cent.

Ms Barry said she worries that the pandemic will add to the burden of candidates vying for positions from remote corners of the country as employers pass them over on fears that their education during the pandemic was not up to scratch.

"We're looking at a lost generation, particularly those children in grades one to three," she added.

"I can see a scenario in 20 years' time when an employer's looking at employing a student and says, 'What year did you go to school?'"