Teacher readiness on promoting merdeka curriculum considering experience in implementing science process skill and scientific literacy learning

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the readiness of science teachers in West Lombok Regency Indonesia to apply the Merdeka Curriculum and to describe their experiences in implementing learning oriented to the development of process skills and scientific literacy in the classroom. This research was carried out using an ex post facto approach. This study involved 24 science teachers and 256 students consisting of 93 seventh-grade students, 108 eighth-grade students, and 64 ninth-grade students as respondents spread across 10 State Junior High Schools in West Lombok Regency in the academic year 2021-2022 which was collected by using a proportional random sampling. The data were obtained using three questionnaires, namely a questionnaire on teacher readiness to apply Independent Learning, distributed to teachers, a questionnaire on the application of Science Process Skills learning, and a questionnaire on the application of scientific literacy learning, each distributed to both teachers and students. Data were analysed descriptively with percentage and correlation techniques. The results showed that the readiness of junior high school science teachers in West Lombok Regency to apply the Merdeka curriculum was in the fair category, with an average score of 50.08. Science teachers who have participated in the Guru Penggerak program have better readiness, with an average score of 66.68, than those who have not, with an average score of 46.28. The teachers considered that they had a good experience on implemented the science process skills learning, while the students considered it fair, with an average score of 73.33 and 59.26, respectively. The teachers’ responses to how well they had applied scientific literacy learning in the classroom were higher than the students, with an average score of 65.88 and 60.97 in the good category, respectively. It seems that the teacher’s experience in applying science process skills and scientific literacy learning plays a role in the teacher’s readiness to apply the Merdeka curriculum. The results of this study are the basis for recommendations on the need for training for science teachers in junior high schools to accelerate the implementation of an independent curriculum through learning oriented towards developing science process skills and science literacy to realise the Pancasila Students Profile.