The value of books
The value of books
It is one of the great paradoxes of life in Indonesia that
although better learning standards have long been recognized as a
basic necessity for promoting progress, books have always been
classified as luxury items that must be taxed accordingly. This
was true in the years immediately after independence in the late
1940s and early 1950s, when the number of higher education
institutions throughout the country could be counted on the
fingers of one hand and academics were looked up to with great
reverence. It is still true today, when colleges and universities
number into the hundreds and university students into the
hundreds of thousands.
For this reason, and particularly in this time of crisis, one
should not be surprised to see imported paperbacks on general
subjects such as art, politics, philosophy or history bearing
price tags of hundreds of thousands of rupiah, or even a million
rupiah or more, which is more than many university lecturers make
in a month. Books on highly specialized subjects obviously cost a
lot more. Locally printed books by Indonesian authors are
significantly more affordable but even these are too expensive
for many students.
President B.J. Habibie's concurrence, which he publicly stated
at the opening of the 14th congress of the Association of
Indonesian Publishers this week, that the 10 percent value-added
tax on locally printed books should be abolished, deserves to be
commended. As association chairman Rozali Usman remarked on the
same occasion, throughout the Asia-Pacific region "it is only our
beloved country that applies a value-added tax on books". The
association is campaigning for all taxes on books to be lifted.
This, according to Rozali, is in line with recommendations made
by the International Publishers Association in Geneva and the
Asia-Pacific Publishers Association in Tokyo, of which his
association is a member.
While lifting taxes that have been imposed on locally printed
books will undoubtedly help bring down their high prices, much
more will have to be done to bring books within reach of most
Indonesians, students in particular. There is, for example, the
problem of copyright infringement. Book piracy, as the practice
is commonly known, is one of the major problems that is
discouraging Indonesian authors -- scholars, academics and
university lecturers among them -- from publishing their work in
book form.
Corruption and collusion in the publication of textbooks for
schools is another major problem that is hampering progress in
education. As Habibie rightly pointed out, a conducive business
climate must be established for the book publishing industry
because the sector is of decisive importance in determining the
teaching-learning process. Publishers have openly complained that
the contracts to publish school textbooks have so far invariably
been won by people well-connected to the authorities. Corruption
in this sector is believed to be so bad that Indonesian
Corruption Watch appealed to the World Bank to stop funding the
procurement of textbooks for junior high schools until the
problem was thoroughly investigated.
Last but not least, the current economic crisis
notwithstanding, the government would do well to consider
reducing the import tax on imported books and look elsewhere for
income. And while it might be true to say that university
textbooks deserve to be given priority in such a tax-reduction
program, the merits that books carry in terms of the specific
needs of their readers, or users, is difficult to measure.
Admittedly, it may be difficult under present circumstances to
give books their rightful place in our crisis-ridden society. In
the longer term, however, making books accessible to as many
Indonesians as possible must become a major point in our national
program.