House Member Calls for Reading Culture Push Alongside Book Distribution

Lestari Moerdijat, a member of the Indonesian House of Representatives, has stated that the distribution of books must be accompanied by efforts to foster a reading culture. She made this statement in response to the move by the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Abdul Mu’ti, who symbolically distributed 5.54 million copies of reading books to 24,609 schools across Indonesia in Kudus, Central Java, last weekend.

“Book distribution is an important first step to address one of the main problems of literacy, namely the low access to quality reading materials. However, without efforts to increase reading interest and culture, this programme is feared not to achieve its main objective,” Lestari said in a statement in Jakarta on Monday.

Lestari, who is also a member of Commission X of the House of Representatives, said the literacy level of the Indonesian people still needs to be improved. Based on the Community Literacy Development Index released by the National Library in March 2026, the national score only reached 40.6. “This data indicates that the literacy foundation is not yet strong,” she said.

According to Lestari, improving literacy still faces a number of obstacles, such as regional disparities, a strong oral culture, relatively expensive book prices, and a lack of family environment support. Lestari encouraged literacy programmes to be implemented in an integrated manner through synergy between the central government, regional governments, literacy activists, and the community.

“A nation with low literacy aspects will struggle to compete on the global stage. We must use this momentum to move together to improve the literacy of every child of the nation. There is no instant solution, what exists is sustainable collaboration to make it happen,” said Lestari.