$132.5 million for textbooks

JAKARTA: The World Bank has approved a loan of US$132.5 million to make school textbooks available to poor children in Indonesia.

The assistance is almost a third of a US$355 million project designed to increase access to textbooks and encourage reading. The project is to be implemented over six years.

"More than 240 million primary and junior secondary textbooks will be provided to more than 36 million students with the assistance of the Book and Reading Development Project," the bank's local office stated yesterday.

Since it proclaimed independence in 1945, Indonesia has virtually achieved nationwide primary education for its estimated 29 million children in both public and private schools.

Now that the period of compulsory education has been lengthened from six to nine years, the number of junior secondary school students is expected to double from six million to 13 million by the year 2009. (pan)