MPR Deputy Chairman Urges Enhanced Literacy to Address Challenges of National Life
Deputy Chairman of the MPR RI, Lestari Moerdijat (Rerie), supports various efforts to enhance public literacy. This is aimed at confronting the increasingly severe challenges of national life.
“Literacy challenges in the current era are very heavy. Because it is not just about creating a society that can merely read, but also must be able to think critically amid the torrent of information that exists,” Rerie stated in her remarks on Wednesday (25/3/2026).
The results of the 2025 Academic Ability Test (TKA) released by the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (Kemendikdasmen) at the end of last year recorded that textual comprehension (students’ ability to understand vocabulary, story background, and text structure) was achieved by 49.21% of TKA participants.
Additionally, students’ inferential comprehension (ability to explain the relationship of meanings between sentences/paragraphs) was achieved by 43.21% of test participants. Then, the ability to adequately evaluate and appreciate texts was achieved by only 45.32% of TKA participants.
These notes, according to Rerie, can be interpreted as more than half of the students not yet having a strong literacy foundation.
“This is not just a matter of numbers, but a real threat to the nation’s competitiveness and sovereignty,” Rerie emphasised.
Rerie, who is also a member of Commission X of the DPR RI, opined that several obstacles in enhancing public literacy, including extreme literacy gaps between regions, the strength of oral culture compared to written culture, relatively expensive book prices, and lack of family environmental support, must be addressed together immediately.
Steps that can be taken immediately, continued Rerie, include facilitating public access to books through the availability of quality books in libraries spread across the country and the elimination of book-related taxes such as VAT, as well as taxes on paper raw materials for books.
Rerie, who is also a legislator from Electoral District II of Central Java, revealed that currently Commission XIII of the DPR RI is pushing for revisions to the Book Law to eliminate VAT on books.
Additionally, emphasised Rerie, efforts to distribute quality teachers evenly in the regions must also be carried out immediately.
“Teachers are one of the literacy commanders in the field, besides the family. It is not enough to just send teachers to the regions, but it must also be ensured that they receive proper support and incentives,” said the member of the NasDem Party’s High Council.
Furthermore, Rerie urged that literacy enhancement efforts become a measurable national movement.
Strong collaboration between the central and regional governments and the community, she stressed, must be realised to implement that movement because literacy is the foundation of national sovereignty.
“If the next generation is unable to properly analyse the torrent of every piece of information that comes, it has the potential to erode the sovereignty of the Motherland,” Rerie concluded.