Ella Wulandari, Bima Mhd Ghaluh, Maman Suryaman, Esti Swatika Sari
Indonesia's 3T regions–Terluar (Outermost), Terdepan (Frontier), and Tertinggal (Underdeveloped)–are areas where educational disparities are most acute, shaped by geographic isolation, socio-economic deprivation, and significant linguistic diversity. This study examines barriers to literacy development in three 3T-designated districts in West Sumatra Province (Mentawai Islands, Solok Selatan, and Pasaman Barat), evaluates current language education policies, and proposes context-sensitive approaches to improve literacy outcomes. Using an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, the research integrates quantitative data from literacy assessments and surveys administered to 160 participants with qualitative insights from interviews and field observations. The findings reveal five compounding barriers: mismatches between students' mother tongues and the Bahasa Indonesia medium of instruction, socio-economic pressures reducing school attendance, chronic infrastructure deficits, shortages of teachers trained in multilingual pedagogy, and diminished student motivation. A disconnect between uniform national language education policies and the realities of extreme-periphery settings exacerbates these barriers. In response, the study proposes bilingual and mother-tongue-based instruction, conditional financial support, infrastructure investment, teacher capacity-building in culturally responsive pedagogy, and community-driven curriculum development. It contributes to Language Policy and Planning scholarship by arguing that prevailing frameworks require a structural-capacity dimension accounting for material conditions shaping policy implementation in contexts of compounded marginalization. © 2026 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Department of Indonesian Language and Literature Education, Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
