Reflections on International Literacy Day, 8 September
Note: This article is the writer’s personal opinion and does not reflect the views of the CNBCIndonesia.com editorial team.
Every 8 September, we commemorate International Literacy Day. Social media will inevitably be abuzz with quotations about the importance of reading, photographs of children holding books, and calls to nurture a love of reading. But perhaps there is a simpler question we should be asking this year: how serious are we — the government — about tackling the problem of literacy in Indonesia?
This question feels increasingly pertinent when, on the one hand, the government speaks about how Indonesian children must be prepared to face the world, whilst on the other the most fundamental homework remains unfinished.
Some time ago, after holding a bilateral meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, President Prabowo casually instructed that French be taught in all schools. Earlier, during a bilateral meeting with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, he said something similar: that Indonesian students need to learn Portuguese. All in the name of diplomacy.
But should we be chasing diplomatic prestige whilst ignoring the reality on the ground? In a country where millions of children do not even use Indonesian at home, ordering them to learn European languages creates a bizarre educational paradox. Before forcing pupils to master a third language, we must first resolve the gap between their mother tongue and the national language used as the medium of instruction in schools.
A Silent Crisis in the 3T Regions
The debate between mother-tongue-based education and foreign-language education is not merely a linguistic matter. It is a reflection of how we view Indonesian children: should they first come to understand the world immediately around them, or should they be hurriedly prepared for the global stage?
In many frontier, outermost and underdeveloped (3T) regions, language remains a major barrier to learning. In classrooms in Flores, Bima and Southwest Sumba, a silent crisis is afflicting pupils in the early grades. They appear confused when asked to read text or answer questions.
The root of the problem is not overly difficult subject matter, but the language of instruction. When these children are forced to learn in Indonesian — which for them is in fact a second language — they bear an unfair double burden. They must master a new language whilst simultaneously grasping the curriculum content.
To bridge this gap, many teachers and education activists in the regions have developed mother-tongue-based multilingual learning. Regional languages are used at the initial stage to help pupils understand basic concepts, before they gradually transition to Indonesian. Although proven effective in practice, this approach demands extraordinary creativity and immense patience from teachers who persist amid limited facilities and minimal infrastructure support.
A Literacy Emergency
Meanwhile, Indonesia still faces enormous homework in improving pupils’ basic literacy. The 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores show that Indonesian students’ reading ability has slumped to 359 points — far below the OECD member average of 476. In fact, only a quarter of our pupils reach the minimum reading proficiency standard.
Sadly, not a single policymaker has dared to present this bitter fact before the President: that his instruction is unrealistic. Before ordering students to learn a new foreign language, the government’s more pressing task is to ensure that millions of children in this country can understand the language they use to learn every day.
Never Mind Reading, There Are Not Even Books
Literacy does not stop at the ability to read. A child who can read needs something to read. It sounds simple, yet this is precisely where the problem lies. They need decent books matched to their reading ability.
In 2026, the National Library’s budget fell to around Rp377 billion, from Rp721 billion the previous year. The National Library has also stated that budget cuts over the past two years have prevented it from carrying out several of its duties optimally. One of the affected programmes is the distribution of free books to villages and community reading gardens.
The trouble is, children know nothing about budgets. All they know is that the books they can read are becoming ever harder to obtain. When the National Library’s budget is nearly halved, the question is not only how libraries stay open, but what is being lost to the children who have long depended on access to books and literacy programmes.
Diverting already scarce resources for priorities in other sectors will only widen the educational inequality gap between pupils in big cities and those living in 3T regions. Never mind dreaming of rattling off French — many pupils in Indonesia’s remotest corners are still struggling to obtain reading material, to read, and to comprehend simple texts in the language they use at school every day.
International Literacy Day should be an opportunity to examine whether our policies genuinely demonstrate that literacy is a priority. Not merely through reading campaigns and stirring quotations from famous authors, but through decisions on budgets, schools, teachers, books, libraries, and the language children use to learn.
We may hold the ambition for Indonesian children to speak French, Portuguese, English, Mandarin, or whatever language they need for their future. But that ambition must not make us forget that there are still children in Indonesia who today are struggling to obtain a decent book and to read a single paragraph.
Mastery of foreign languages is the roof; access to appropriate reading material and basic literacy is the foundation. Regrettably, our government currently appears far more enthusiastic about installing a gleaming new roof than about reinforcing a foundation that is already crumbling.