Indonesia Sesame Street 'makes kids smarter'

Updated December 28, 2010 21:19:32
There are about 20 countries that have their own version of the classic American children's show, Sesame Street, and Indonesia's version, Jalan Sesama, has had a remarkable first two years. A recent study has suggested that children who watch Jalan Sesama have more advanced educational skills and social awareness than others.

Presenter: Sajithra Nithi
Speakers: Dina Borzekowski, associate professor, health communication, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States, and lead author of the 'Jalan Sesama' study; Dr Muhammad Zuhdi, director, department for education, research and outreach, Jalan Sesama
Listen: Windows Media
[Sound of Sesame Street's US theme song]

NITHI: Sesame Street has been a favourite television programme of children for more than 40 years.

And since 2008 Indonesia has had its own version of the show called Jalan Sesama.

[Sound of Jalan Sesama theme song]

NITHI: Jalan Sesama means 'street for all' in Indonesian.

American researchers recently looked into the impacts of the programme on young children over a course of 14 weeks.

BORZEKOWSKI: Kids in Indonesia watch a huge amount of television. So one of the interesting things that we were trying to get at was 'Does this show have any sort of differential impact on the children compared to some of the other shows that they were watching?'

NITHI: That's Dina Borzekowski, the study's lead author and associate professor in health communication at the Johns Hopkins University.

One hundred and sixty children aged between 3 and 6 years were divided in to three groups for the study.

The first was a control group, which watched an assortment of television programmes. The second group was shown an episode of Jalan Sesama once a week. And the third group watched the show four times a week.

The children were all questioned on their skills, knowledge, and beliefs before the study and at the end of the 14 weeks.

Lead researcher Professor Borzekowski says the biggest improvements were seen in the group that received the highest exposure.

BORZEKOWSKI: What we saw was that watching Jalan Sesama above and beyond other programmes that they see had a significant impact on their scores for literacy, numeracy, for social development, cultural awareness, and for health and safety issues.

NITHI: Traffic safety was one of the issues the children were questioned on.

BORZEKOWSKI: Kids in Indonesia are at great risk from traffic issues, the majority of kids don't wear seat belts, they don't wear helmets when they're on motorcycles with their parents, and following exposure to the show, kids were much more aware about wearing helmets when riding on a motorcycle and they knew about the stripes for crosswalks, so those were nice outcomes.

NITHI: Dr Muhammad Zuhdi is the director of education, research and outreach for Jalan Sesama.

He explains why the show's grown to be popular.

ZUHDI: First of all, it's created for a young audience and we have very few shows targeted to a young audience. Secondly, we produce this programme based on Indonesian characters. We use Indonesian actors, Indonesian talents, the stories are written in Indonesia by Indonesians and the settings are all Indonesia. So it's close to the audience.

NITHI: This year saw the occasional appearance of the classic Sesame Street character, Elmo. But for the most part, the stars of Jalan Sesama are muppets tailored to an Indonesian audience - like Jabrik, a creative white rhinoceros, and Tantan, an environmentally conscious orangutan.

And then there are also characters like Agent 123, who teaches basic numbers, and Gatot Kata, who helps with words and pronunciation.

[Sound from scene from Jalan Sesama in Indonesian]

NITHI: In addition to the show's puppets are human characters like the storyteller, Pak Dalang, and Dr Susan.

Jalan Sesama continues to air in Indonesia, but there are concerns about access.

Dr Muhammad Zudhi says [the show's producers] are now working on an outreach programme, providing children in low access areas with educational material and toys.

ZUHDI: Our show is educative enough but we know that only limited children can watch. So we initiated this outreach programme to let more children learn with Jalan Sesama.

NITHI: While the study focused on Indonesia, several other countries, including India, Egypt, Tanzania and Brazil, have their own local versions of Sesame Street.

And the original American version is still broadcast around the world to an audience of millions of children.