Pemberdayaan Remaja Putus Sekolah Melalui Literasi Ekonomi dan Bahasa untuk Penguatan Kesiapan Kemandirian di Desa

Abstract

School-dropout adolescents are at risk of limited access to functional competencies, including understanding economic information, using language for everyday needs, and making independent decisions. This community service program aimed to strengthen economic literacy, language literacy, and readiness for independence through an educational-participatory mentoring program in Banuayu Village. The program lasted 16 weeks and involved 12 school-dropout adolescents. The stages consisted of pre-activity, core economic and language literacy activities, practical application, mentoring, and monitoring and evaluation. Evaluation used economic and language literacy pretest–posttest scores, an independence scale, and engagement observation. Mean economic literacy increased from 68 to 87 (27.94%), language literacy from 53 to 84 (58.49%), and independence from 76 to 98 (28.95%). The highest relative improvement occurred in language literacy. The results indicate that contextual learning combined with practice, feedback, and mentoring is a relevant strategy for strengthening functional competencies among school-dropout adolescents. The findings are not interpreted as causal evidence or proof of long-term economic independence because the program had no control group and post-program evaluation was immediate.