Improving Educational Accessibility for Children of Marginalized Families

27
Apr
2023

In education, a conducive culture is a learning activity that delivers a way of life that is developed and shared by the education unit, and becomes a benchmark for students' behavior. This understanding requires public awareness, especially schools, families, and communities, to collaborate with education. “The involvement of parents in meeting the educational needs of children is at least expected to be able to act as an agent of change for improving the quality of human resources while still being based on Indonesian ethics and culture,” said a Professor of Non-formal Education of UNY, Prof. Dr. Serafin Wisni Septiarti. According to her, the configuration of marginalized children's education is a process of forming informal education patterns in the family and environment that are synergistic with schools based on a system of knowledge, values, attitudes, and basic skills or skills needed by children in their social development. "The informal learning process cannot be separated from the role, function of the family, home atmosphere, socio-economic conditions, peers, mass media, and the living environment is a process of continuity of education between family and school," she said on Thursday (27/4) at UNY. 

The characteristics of marginalized children with low socio-economic backgrounds and low access to information and technology are often called vulnerable to social changes that negatively impact their quality of life and future. "Non-formal education has opportunities and challenges to complement, supplement and replace formal education. Therefore, education is an alternative to educational development for children who are socio-economically and culturally disadvantaged," Wisni said. Educational units that develop in the community, such as course institutions and skills education based on potential and types of skills following the learning needs of marginalized children. The principle of partnership, the collaboration between the government and universities committed to empowering marginalized groups through research, and community service, needs to be strengthened institutionally, especially in study programs closely related to increasing the accessibility of quality education for all.

Prof. Dr. Serafin Wisni Septiarti emphasized that the accessibility of quality education for all shows the government's commitment to increasing the involvement of marginalized children in improving the quality of human resources, which has become a development priority. Learning in formal and non-formal education institutions requires educators with a multicultural perspective, providing equal opportunities for students to develop according to their potential and facilitating learning with differences, interests, and learning styles. Therefore, in their learning tasks, educators use different methods and strategies (deferential learning).

By law, even students with vulnerable and marginalized positions have the same rights to enjoy formal and non-formal education services at school age. The Education for all movement, launched in 1990 by UNESCO with UNDP and UNICEF, has been widely developed by various countries worldwide and committed to quality education for all by 2015. The milestones of the world's commitment to the need for education for all, including vulnerable or marginalized groups, continue to this day. In many countries, the issue of non-formal education has become a special topic that is a solution to the problems of community education services, especially for people not served by formal education. Non-formal education functions to develop the potential of students with emphasis and mastery of functional knowledge and skills as well as the development of attitudes and personalities such as life skills education, early childhood education, youth education, job training, women's empowerment education, literacy education, skills education, and equivalency education, as well as other education aimed at developing the abilities of students.(Author: Dedy, Editor: Sudaryono, Tj.Lak)

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