Aug 30, 2020 – Prestasi Junior Indonesia always has, close at hand, examples of qualitative data indicative of the positive impact that our JA Worldwide programs have within classrooms in Indonesian schools. The innovative experiential nature of initiatives is almost always greeted with enthusiasm by the students. This has become even more evident with the adaptation of hard-copy learning tools and their delivery to a 100% digital strategy – no paper is used. Instead, students are engaged in JA Our Family, JA Our City, and JA Our Region programs using education technology in the classroom. Citi Foundation has supported this adaptation from hardcopy, enabling the delivery of 15 JA lessons via tablets with the addition of one laptop and a router for each classroom (to overcome connection difficulties). Over the last two years First State Investment Indonesia has provided the funding to enable the digital JA programs to be delivered via a road show strategy. Schools and students have benefitted from this technology in six of the nation’s largest cities. Qualitative evidence of this is seen on every occasion we deliver these programs – in the pure joy students exhibit when each is provided with a tablet and the lessons begin. They wholeheartedly grasp this opportunity with enthusiasm just as they grasp the tablets in both of their hands throughout the entire lessons. As we target poorly resourced schools this is usually the first opportunity they have had to learn using devices and digital curriculum, so it is always an exciting experience for them.
The recent quantitative assessment of impact is enabled using three digital platforms which capture levels of student understanding whilst beneficiaries are engaged in each of the lessons. We are able to access real time information as to the improvement in knowledge of the students from the time immediately prior to their engagement until after all JA sessions have been completed. This change has proven to be massive and the documentation below illustrates this!
PJI has been able to access and collate the data of 3,012 students from grades 3-5 in four of the six cities (before school closure due to Covid-19). These schools are listed below together with the raw average test scores for each class level and the cumulative average improvement as a percentage for each of these grade levels. As a result of the JA experience students from State Elementary School Duri Kepa 01 at Grade 4 level (JA Our City) improved their knowledge by an average of 150%. Even the average score of 90% indicated for State Elementary School Pejaten Barat 01 is a massive accomplishment and this is the lowest score! Not only do these results indicate the tremendous value of JA elementary school programs for Indonesian students it also identifies elements of current curriculum content which requires attention by local government (elementary school curriculum is administered at regional level). PJI is well placed to help them augment current content and delivery using this digital approach.