Paper price hike hurts children
Paper price hike hurts children
JAKARTA (JP): Next month's rise in the price of newsprint, prominent intellectuals warn, will not only push up book prices but threaten the reading habits and ultimately the education of Indonesian children.
Poet Taufik Ismail and educator J. Drost said in a separate interviews with the Jakarta Post that the price rise from the present Rp 1,320 per kg undoubtedly will have a significant impact on education.
"Any price increase in newsprint will no doubt increase book prices because many books are printed on newsprint. This (planned hike) certainly will not encourage the reading habits of children, which is already very weak now," said Taufiq.
The Association of Indonesian Pulp and Paper Producers has said that production costs for newsprint have increased due to the steady hike in the prices of scrap paper, which is the main raw material of newsprint.
Newsprint prices escalated from Rp 1,170 (53 U.S. cents) per kilogram last August to Rp 1,270 for the September-December period and went up again to Rp 1,320 per kg for the January-March period.
The government has, on various occasions, made it public that the price will be "adjusted" next month but it has not specified the new price.
Taufiq, a well-known poet and writer, said the plan was especially bad news for the promotion of literary works, which are already in a sad state due to a lack of public interest and the "modern" threats of electronic media.
"For the past 20 years or so secondary high-school students have graduated with less and less knowledge of literature. If book prices go up, what more can we expect of them?" he asked, adding that much literature is also printed on newsprint.
As a parent, he said, he personally is not discouraged because he wants his children to enjoy reading and literature as much as him.
"But this is a very personal choice and we can't expect all parents to be like me," he said.
Drost pointed out the need to carry out a thorough study on who, or which group in society, would significantly be effected by the increase.
He said that even if the planned price hike causes school textbooks -- which mostly use newsprint -- to become more expensive, it would be of little concern for "wealthy" private schools, which compel their students to buy the books.
"Even now, it's clear that those who can afford to buy books are people from well-to-do families. They will not mind a price increase," he said.
"But if everyone, including the less well-off private schools, are required to buy the books, then it will become a problem because not everyone can afford them," he said.
Concern with the planned newsprint price hike has also been voiced by Nur Ahmad Fadhil Lubis, a lecturer at the North Sumatra State Institute for Islamic Studies.
He was quoted by Antara as saying that a hike could widen the "information gap" between those who can afford the books and printed media and those who cannot.
"This may establish a sort of elite group in society which has exclusive access to information. It will certainly not support efforts to educate the people who need wide access to information," he said.
Lubis said that to avoid the emergence of such "elite groups", the government should continue giving value-added tax subsidies to publications which have an educational mission, such as school textbooks.
But chairman of the Indonesian Book Publishers Association Rozali Usman has another reason to be pessimistic about the low sale of books.
"It's not that books are expensive in Indonesia. The fact is that not many people are interested in spending their money on books," he lamented. (pwn)