One Year Compulsory PAUD Service in Jakarta to Prepare Children for Elementary School Level

Jakarta Education Agency (Disdik) continues to realize complete Early Childhood Education (PAUD) with excellent quality through equitable access, improving quality and quantity of educational facilities and infrastructure, as well as improving education ecosystem role by increasing parental awareness regarding the importance of PAUD. Moreover, early age is a 'golden age' to receive stimuli that only comes once, cannot be repeated, and it is a very decisive phase for further development of human qu ality.

PAUD is stimulation towards children development that should be done from early childhood

Therefore, Jakarta Disdik will implement One Year Compulsory PAUD Service to prepare children for elementary school level. This service will take effect in the upcoming New Academic Year 2021/2022 for children aged 5 to 6 years. Learning will be still carried out online or virtual, considering that it is still in pandemic situation.

Jakarta Disdik Head, Nahdiana explained, her side had conducted study on One Year Compulsory PAUD Service. This study was carried out based on juridical, theoretical, and empirical aspects involving various parties, from Education and Culture Ministry, Jakarta Government, Faculty of Psychology from Universitas Indonesia, and PAUD Teacher Education Study Program from State University of Jakarta.

33 Public PAUDs Inaugurated

Juridically, this idea was supported by legal framework that has correlation as a basis for early childhood service one year before Elementary School (SD) in form of laws and regulations, government regulations, presidential regulations, and ministerial regulations. While from theoretical aspect, it shows that there are psychological theories that show the importance of PAUD.

"PAUD is stimulation towards children development that should be done from early childhood. If it is not done, it will have fatal consequences for children's subsequent development. Based on empirical aspect, there are research results related to the importance of PAUD as developmental foundation for children to pursue further development," she said as quoted from Jakarta PPID Press Release.

Furthermore, the results of mapping PAUD quality in Jakarta showed that 90% of PAUD institution in Jakarta already have the ability in managing and implementing a comprehensive PAUD and they able to provide readiness in PAUD services for children aged 5-6 years to get the service in PAUD Unit before continuing to elementary school.

"Several regencies/municipalities in Indonesia have also implemented mandatory regulation to prepare One  Year Compulsory PAUD service before going to elementary school level. It shows commitment of city governments in developing PAUD in the regions. Jakarta is also ready to do it," she asserted.

Moreover, she continued, results from unit readiness study for this service showed that Jakarta PAUD Institution met 8 national PAUD standards. It means, Jakarta PAUD Institution is indicated to be worthy for providing good quality PAUD services.

Besides, result of the study on readiness of community support for this service showed that community's appreciation and support are very high. It indicates that public awareness is increasing towards the importance of PAUD. Public really hopes for access to good quality PAUD services in all areas of Jakarta Province.

In order to support this idea, Jakarta Government continues to strengthen policies to expand access to good quality PAUD services across Jakarta through regulations. In addition, continuous coaching will be also carried out to ensure implementation of good quality PAUD services in Jakarta.

"Hopefully, the idea of One Year Compulsory PAUD service before elementary school level can be implemented on target and able to support children's growth and development optimally, and most importantly it can be a bridge between levels in order to prepare children for higher education levels. We thank you for cooperation of all parties who support the efforts to realize this idea. I hope the joint efforts of all stakeholders will produce the best educational outcomes for children at early age as an investment for the nation's next generation," she conveyed.

For information, based on Education and Culture Ministry's Basic Education Data (Dapodik) up to August 2020, Jakarta Province has 3,964 registered institutions with various types of services, consisting of 1,960 kindergartens, 353 KBs, 20 TPAs, and 1,631 SPSs. Jakarta Governor, Anies Baswedan also targets Jakarta PAUD Gross Participation Rate (APK) to be 100% in the next two years.

With the One Year Compulsory PAUD Service, it is hoped to increase APK for PAUD in Jakarta and further prepare Jakarta's children for higher education.