Literature Review: The Relationship between Merdeka Curriculum and Student Learning Achievement

After the inauguration of Nadiem Makarim on October 23, 2019 as Indonesia's Minister of Education, Culture, Research and Technology, there were several excellent policies and programs made related to education in Indonesia. One of the superior products is the Merdeka Belajar Curriculum. This research is a literature review that examines and studies literature related to the Merdeka Curriculum on Student Learning Achievement. Data collection using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta Analysis (PRISMA) method. The curriculum that is currently being implemented is the Merdeka Curriculum, a curriculum with the aim of being able to facilitate the transition process of the national curriculum and to restore education that was previously less than optimal due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this Merdeka Curriculum in its application in order to optimize and provide opportunities for students to explore their interests and talents. A fun curriculum and learning system makes students feel comfortable during the process so that it can improve student achievement. Thus, there is a relationship between the Merdeka Curriculum and Student Learning Achievement.


INTRODUCTION
Education is a very important and fundamental role in efforts to create a quality society.
Education is a way to change the condition of underdeveloped countries into developed countries.
Developed countries are born one of them from advanced education.
Efforts to improve the quality of society are part of the goals of national education. Law No. 20 Article 3 Year 2003 on the National Education System. Education aims to develop the ability and shape the character and civilization of a qualified nation in order to educate the nation's life, as well as develop the potential of students to become human beings who are faithful and that in the 2022/2023 school year educational units apply the Merdeka Belajar Curriculum in the process. This phenomenon is being felt by educators in various regions, making educators quickly respond to synchronize learning with the applicable Merdeka Belajar Curriculum.
According to Poerwadaninta (in Mulyadi, 2016) the achievement of learning outcomes is the achievement of the best possible results in accordance with the child's ability at a certain point on things that are being done or done. In addition, according to Djalal (in Supardanayasa, 2021) argues that student learning achievement is a representation of student abilities obtained from the assessment of the student learning process in achieving learning objectives.
Based on the experience of researchers when implementing the Teaching Campus Program Batch 3, the focus of researchers is not only to assist educators in re-stabilizing the teaching and learning process due to the covid-19 virus pandemic that has been going on for almost two years, but also to assist in adapting technology that can be applied to educational units, and researchers also carry out the task of socializing the Merdeka Belajar Curriculum to schools where researchers carry out deployment assignments, and several schools in the same area.
In its implementation, Merdeka Belajar Curriculum is non-parallel and refers to a policy that gives schools the freedom to implement Merdeka Belajar Curriculum. The Ministry of Education and Culture has recorded the readiness of schools in Implementasi Kurikulum Merdeka (IKM), which shows that there are many public and private schools that are ready and registered to implement IKM with an independent learning category of 35,334 schools, for the independent category there are 59,429 schools, an independent category of 3,607 which will begin to be implemented in the 2022/2023 school year covering PAUD, SD, SMP, SMA / SMK levels (Rahmadayanti & Hartoyo, 2022).
There are still quite a few studies that discuss the Merdeka Curriculum at school, most of the research conducted discusses the Merdeka Curriculum at the tertiary level. Research that discusses the Merdeka Curriculum has only been submitted by several researchers, namely (Susilowati & Author, 2022), (Perdana, 2021), and (Sumarsih et al., 2022). Based on the above background, the authors are interested in conducting research that discusses the Relationship between the Independent Curriculum and Student Learning Achievement.

Independent Curriculum on Student Learning Achievement
According to (Hidayani, 2016) the curriculum is a set of plans and rules relating to the content and learning materials as well as the methods used to deliver teaching and learning activities. Discussing further, according to Schwab (in Martín-Alonso et al., 2021) argues that the curriculum is not an abstract representation or idea, the curriculum is built on real and concrete issues where each difference is compared with other experiences and contexts.
The curriculum should reflect a common understanding of educational terminology commonly used by educators. The curriculum must be useful for educators in making lesson plans.
Meanwhile, according to (Hidayani, 2016) the curriculum is a set of plans and rules relating to the content and learning materials as well as the methods used to deliver teaching and learning activities.
To continue to improve the quality of education in Indonesia, the applied curriculum develops, adapts to education units, regional potential, and needs to be evaluated to study the effectiveness of curriculum implementation. According to Indarta (in Rahmadayanti & Hartoyo, 2022)  Merdeka Curriculum according to (Kemendikbudristek, 2022) is a curriculum that includes a variety of intracurricular learning, optimizing content to provide students with sufficient time to explore concepts and strengthen competencies. Teachers have the flexibility to choose various educational tools to tailor the learning process to students' learning needs and interests. The advantages of implementing this independent curriculum are that educators become creative and innovative in implementing the learning process, the material presented to students is given freedom, free to be delivered sequentially or randomly, depending on which part the educator and students must master first (Aprima, 2022).
Meanwhile, according to (Abidah et al., 2020) argues that free learning means free learning, which is providing opportunities for students to learn as freely as possible, to learn calmly, relaxed and happily and without pressure by paying attention to their natural talents, without forcing them to learn or master a field of knowledge outside of their hobbies and abilities, so that each has a portfolio that suits their interests.
There are two main objectives underlying this independent curriculum policy. First, the government, in this case Kemendikbudristek, wants to emphasize that schools have the authority and responsibility to develop the curriculum according to the needs and circumstances of each school. Second, this curriculum option policy is expected to facilitate a smooth and gradual transition process of the national curriculum (Kemendikbudristek, 2022).
Quoting from (Kemendikbudristek, 2022) in its implementation, the independent curriculum has four main policies, including the following: a. Changing Ujian Sekolah Berstandar Nasional (USBN) to Asesmen Kompetensi In this independent curriculum, the USBN will be replaced by assessments organized only by schools. Tests to assess student competencies can be conducted in the form of written tests or other more comprehensive forms of assessment, such as portfolios and assignments.
Teachers and schools are more independent in assessing student learning outcomes.

b. Ujian Nasioanl (UN) will be changed to Asesmen Kompetensi Minimum and Survei
Karakter Ujian Nasional (UN) will be changed to a Asesmen Kompetensi Minimum and Survei Karakter consisting of: 1) Literacy: The ability to reason using language.
2) Numeracy: The ability to reason using math.

3) Character Reinforcement Education.
The test is administered to students in the middle of the school year, e.g. grades 4, 8, 11, so it encourages teachers and schools to improve the quality of learning and cannot be used as a basis for selecting students to the next level.

c. Simplification of Rencana Pelaksanaan Pembelajaran (RPP)
Under the new policy, teachers are free to choose, create, use and develop lesson plan formats. The three core components of lesson plans consist of learning objectives, learning activities and assessment. Writing lesson plans is done efficiently and effectively so that teachers have more time to prepare and evaluate the learning process itself.

d. Peraturan Penerimaan Peserta Didik Baru (PPDB) Zonasi
Making the PPDB policy more flexible to accommodate inequality of access and quality in various regions, the zoning composition includes the following: 1) Zoning Pathway: at least 50% 2) Affirmation Pathway: at least 15% 3) Transfer Path: maximum 5% 4) Achievement Pathway: 0 -30% (adjusted to regiona; conditions) Each region is authorized to determine the final proportions and establish zoning areas.
Equitable access to and quality of education needs to be accompanied by other initiatives by local governments, such as the redistribution of educators to schools that lack educators.
According to (Sherly et al., 2020) Merdeka learning requires the transformation of the school curriculum towards a diversified school curriculum: 1) National standards are set by the center to be further elaborated into Provincial standards and District/city standards; education standards need to be measured and improved regularly.
2) Education programs have diverse objectives, so education based on national interests through PPKN, Religious Education, Indonesian Language, Mathematics and Global Education will be a tool to unify the nation.
3) Basic literacy and numeracy education and training is the core of the school curriculum towards the development of lifelong learning.
4) The educational burden of basic knowledge (subjects) should be reduced to the extent necessary for practice and implemented through thematic learning. According to (Supardanayasa, 2021) states that learning achievement is the result of individual competence after completing a learning process. Individual learning achievement is in accordance with the level of success in learning learning material which is expressed in the form of grades after going through the learning process. Student learning achievement can be seen after an evaluation is held, and the results of the evaluation can show the level of student learning achievement.

5)
Meanwhile, according to (in Simpen, 2021) learning achievement is the result of educational assessment related to student improvement after carrying out the learning process.
Learning achievement is a result obtained that can make changes in individuals as a result of  (Alp Christ et al., 2022) teaching quality indirectly affects student achievement. Therefore, the relationship between teaching quality and student achievement is continuous.
Meanwhile, according to (Kolovou et al., 2021) argues that student achievement is usually measured either by standardized tests or by curriculum-based measurement procedures. In order to achieve good learning outcomes, making yourself and others proud. Therefore, in order to get good learning outcomes, students are faced with several factors that can make students get maximum learning outcomes. The need to create a conducive learning environment system in order to achieve the learning objectives that have been set, this relates to factors from outside the student. Meanwhile, the factors that influence it are gaining knowledge, planting concepts, skills, and forming attitudes.
According to (Pingge & Wangid, 2016) states that the factors that influence learning outcomes can be grouped into two major groups, namely factors that come from within students (internal factors) which include intellectual abilities, affections such as feelings and self-confidence, motivation, maturity to learn, memory ability, and sensory abilities such as seeing, hearing, and feeling. While factors that come from outside the student (external factors) include factors related to the conditions of the learning process which include teachers, learning quality, learning instruments or facilities in the form of hardware and software and the environment, both the social environment and the natural environment.
Based on the above references, there is a new system in the curriculum that is currently being implemented, namely the Merdeka Curriculum, a curriculum with the aim of being able to facilitate the transition process of the national curriculum and being able to restore education that was previously less than optimally implemented due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Apart from being free for students, this curriculum also aims to liberate educators, the existence of this new curriculum system allows educators to have flexibility in the education process, educators can adjust the process of teaching and learning activities to the needs and interests of student learning. The education process with the Merdeka Curriculum system can improve student learning achievement results, because the learning process is flexibly designed to refer to the direction of students' interests and talents.

CONCLUSION
Based on the results of analysis from several sources, it can be concluded that there is a positive relationship between the Independent Curriculum and Student Learning Achievement, because the Independent Curriculum itself is designed so that students can feel independent in learning, and also educators feel free when teaching. A flexible curriculum, provides space and opportunities for students to their interests and talents, besides that it makes educators more innovative and creative in the learning process, because the material presented to students is given freedom, delivering randomly or sequentially depending on what material educators and students must master first. Some factors that can affect learning achievement besides self and motivation, one of the factors that can affect student learning achievement is the curriculum system used by the school, the learning process carried out by students, the quality of learning provided. Therefore, the author argues that with a pleasant curriculum and learning system, students can feel comfortable during the process so that it can improve student achievement itself. Thus, there is a relationship between the Merdeka Curriculum and Student Learning Achievement.