Please see query below, in yellow<\/p>\n
Govt urged to promote reading habit<\/p>\n
Evi Mariani
\nThe Jakarta Post
\nJakarta<\/p>\n
In a bid to cultivate a reading habit on behalf of the public,
\nthe government and local administrations need to pour more funds
\ninto the improvement and establishment of public libraries
\nthroughout the archipelago, head of the National Library Dady
\nRahmananta has said.<\/p>\n
\"Reading makes a huge contribution to intellectual capacity,
\nbecause, unlike watching audio-visual material, it allows people
\nto develop their imagination, thereby exercising their brain,\"
\nDady said on the sidelines of a seminar on improving reading and
\nlearning habits on Monday.<\/p>\n
The government, according to Dady, ought to establish as many
\nlibraries as possible so that people could borrow books for free.<\/p>\n
According to Sumengen Sutomo, chairman of Develop Indonesia
\nFoundation, public libraries were available in only 0.5 percent
\nof villages and districts throughout Indonesia.<\/p>\n
Worse still, most libraries across the country were neglected
\nor had no new book supply.<\/p>\n
\"Such a situation has dissuaded people from visiting
\nlibraries,\" Dady said. \"A library is indeed a cost center, not a
\nprofit center, by its very nature, so it requires a lot of
\nmoney.\"<\/p>\n
He added that the quality of education in Indonesia was
\npreviously more advanced than that in Malaysia, but now it was
\nlagging behind.<\/p>\n
\"Previously, Malaysians went to Indonesian universities, but
\nnow the situation is reversed,\" he said.<\/p>\n
A paper provided by Bebi Sutomo, one of the speakers in the
\nseminar, said that promoting the reading habit was an important
\nfactor in education, but it had never been a top priority in the
\ngovernment's national educational policy. Consequently, the
\ncountry's illiteracy rate was still alarmingly high.<\/p>\n
According to the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), in 2000 the
\nilliteracy rate of females and males of 10 years and over in
\nrural areas reached a staggering 40 percent in Papua, 30 percent
\nin West Nusa Tenggara, 30 percent in East Java and 30 percent in
\nSouth Sulawesi.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the 1997 International Education Assessment Test
\nindicated that the reading and writing ability of Indonesian
\nelementary school students was only 36 percent, putting Indonesia
\nas second-lowest above Venezuela, which scored 33.9 percent. Does
\nthis mean that only 36 percent can read or write, which seems
\nrather low, or the level of attainment is only 36 percent, or
\nsomething else?<\/p>\n
In 2001, a UN Development Program (UNDP) report showed that
\nIndonesia's human development index (HDI) -- whose indicators
\nwere life expectancy rate, education quality and gross domestic
\nproduct -- was so low that it plunged the country to 102nd
\nposition -- worse than Vietnam -- which ranked 101st.<\/p>\n
However, those figures did not prod the government into
\nincorporating the promotion of reading habits into its national
\nprograms.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, First Secretary of the Chinese Embassy in Jakarta
\nZhao Xucai said that his government had come to regard reading
\npromotion as one of the key factors in poverty alleviation in the
\ncountry.<\/p>\n
Since 1995 the Chinese government has introduced the
\n\"Prospering Villages through Sciences and Education\" project,
\ntargeting farmers in rural areas. By 1999, the project had helped
\nto achieve an economic improvement of over 1.5 billion yuan
\n(about US$168 million).<\/p>",
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