Citizens must love books

Your editorial titled Books to educate the people (The Jakarta Post, Sept. 21) was good so far as it went, but it did not go far enough.

If Indonesia wants to exploit its potential and become an advanced country equal to any in the world, it must educate its citizens, so that they can take their rightful place in the modern world.

No country in today's world has become advanced and powerful unless its citizens have learned to enjoy reading outside of school. Look at China, America, Russia, France, India, and many others. In all of them you will find millions and millions of self-motivated readers who have access to good libraries. In Singapore the libraries are packed with people of all ages reading for their own purposes.

In Indonesia at present most people (including school teachers) do not read books after they have finished their formal education, apparently a heritage of the long years of repression under Soeharto. "The people" can't be "educated by books" unless they have already learned in school or at home to love books and to read for enjoyment and self-education outside of school.

Educating students to read should be taught, beginning in Elementary school, by teachers who enjoy books and have ready access to books. University faculties of education must train their teacher trainees how to teach reading, but also how to enjoy reading themselves.

For this to happen, the education students must have access to good libraries filled with all kinds of books, fiction and non- fiction, contemporary and non-contemporary. Good libraries must also be staffed by librarians educated in modern librarianship.

Indonesia has many problems, but it must give priority to teaching reading and to funding both the education (abroad if such education is not available in Indonesia) of librarians in modern librarianship and the creation of well-stocked modern libraries to which all will be attracted, not just in cities but also within a reasonable distance of every village.

The existing university and city libraries I have visited are not the attractive modern libraries needed. The many educated Indonesians who are concerned that their country achieves its potential must take the lead, perhaps by establishing an NGO for just this purpose, in seeing that the national education budget is adequately funded to achieve these ends.

WILLIS W. JOURDIN JR.

Denpasar, Bali