Alvin Toffler, an
American writer and futurist, stated, “The illiterate of 21st
century will not be those who can not read and write but those who cannot
learn, unlearn, and relearn”. It is about the future human in information age. The
Information Age, also commonly known as the Digital Age, is an idea that the
current age will be characterized by the ability of individuals to transfer
information freely, and to have instant access to information that would have
been difficult or impossible to find previously. It is assumed that all people
in the world are able to read and write. Ironically, in the present day we
still face a number of illiterate. According to data from UNESCO’s Institute
for Statistics (2011), 793 million adults –most of them girls and women- are
illiterate.
Indonesia, and eight other countries (Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India,
Mexico, Nigeria, and Pakistan) are home to over two-thirds of the world’s adult
illiterates and more than half the planet’s out-of-school children.
In West Java, Indonesia,
specifically in Jatinangor, I found a group of 30-40 year old illiterate women
who learned to read and write. Everyday after finishing their housework, they
gathered at one member’s home and started the class. In another location, I
found a group consists of young adults aged 18-21 who dropped out of high
school. They dropped out because of lack of financial support. Then they
continued to study in a non formal school, which free of charge, named Kejar
Paket C (Study Group Package C) at PKBM (Pusat Kegiatan Belajar Masyarakat or community
learning centre) Linuhung. Study Group Package C is a non-formal education program
organized by Department of National Education Indonesia which equivalent to
senior high school. Either the first group (illiterate women) or the second
group (dropout students) is a group of learner, no matter how old they are. It
is argued that they had something motivated them to learn, to achieve, to
succeed. What kind of psychological state that underlies and affects the learning
process?
