Digital Literacy will Enter the Classroom

KOMPAS/HERU SRI KUMORO

A pedestrian looks at antihoax campaign murals under the Rawa Buntu overpass in Serpong, South Tangerang, on Monday (11/3/2019).

JAKARTA, KOMPAS — An informatics curriculum, which also involves digital literacy for students, is being prepared. Next year, systematic and structured digital literacy education is targeted to enter classrooms to educate young people to be more resistant to the exposure to information manipulation in the digital age.

Digital literacy training programs currently being carried out by the government and civil society are feared not to be optimal in minimizing the negative impact of the spread of disinformation. A systematic approach in the form of formal education is needed.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines digital literacy as the ability to use digital technology to search for, understand, evaluate, create and communicate information. The expected results are people who are not easy to believe, critical and filter information before spreading them.

A special staff of the Communications and Information Minister in the Field of Digital and Human Resources, Dedy Permadi, when contacted from Jakarta on Tuesday (21/1/2020), said the Communications and Information Ministry and Education and Culture Ministry are strengthening the informatics curriculum so that it did not only cover technical competency, but also aspects of digital literacy for elementary to high school students.

KOMPAS/TATANG MULYANA SINAGA

Young people join the Bandung Anti Hoaks (Bandung Against Hoaxes) declaration organized by the Indonesian Anti-Libel Society (Mafindo) during Car Free Day on Jl. Ir Djuanda, Bandung, West Java, (31/3/2019).

Daily caretaker of the National Literacy Movement at the Education and Culture Ministry, Wien Muldian, explained that in the future, digital literacy will be united with daily learning in the classrooms. However, he has not been able to ensure the implementation time target because there are still many things that need to be prepared, such as training of teaching staff and coordination between the central and regional governments.

"Let us just wait. Literacy is not only a secondary subject but also a core subject," Wien said.

The latest version of the informatics curriculum is expected to be implemented in 2021. With regard to this, around 2,000 elementary and high school teachers will participate in a training of trainers on digital literacy materials. The training will be held simultaneously throughout Indonesia for one to two weeks.

Literacy is not only a secondary subject but also a core subject.

Dedy Permadi expressed his confidence that Indonesia will gradually emulate the success of digital literacy practices in developed countries such as Australia, Canada, Finland, Sweden and Denmark. Those countries teach digital literacy based on critical thinking skills from an early age. As a result, the countries have high resilience to counteract disinformation and are noted to have quality democracy.

Meanwhile, Indonesia New Media Watch director Agus Sudibyo said, as digital literacy will be included in the education curriculum, other systemic approaches need to be taken. Digital literacy and efforts to counteract hoaxes are not only the responsibility of government, civil society groups and literacy activists. The social media industry that takes advantage of the spread of negative content spread on their platforms must also be held accountable.

"There must be a special scheme in which the industry is conditioned to set aside some of its profits for the national digital literacy program. It can be through taxes or fines. Big power, big money, big responsibility. Now they have power, have money, but what about aspects of responsibility?" Agus said