Out of Reach

In this vast archipelagic nation where books cost more than a few days’ rice supply for the majority of families, it’s easy to assume that reading interest remains low. But is this fact or a persistent myth? Bhimanto Suwastoyo reports.  

The high cost of books, compounded by illiteracy and an education system that mostly predates the nation's founding in 1945, all point to an environment that is not supportive of developing strong reading habits.

Central Bureau of Statistics figures from 2002, the most recent available data on literacy in Indonesia, showed that there were still 18.7 million people over the age of 10 (8.86 percent of the population) who could not read or write.

For a developing nation, there also is the factor of the nation's education system, which is still mostly based on the Dutch colonial system emphasizing rote learning, said Sudjarwo Singowidjojo, the head of the Education Ministry's sub-directorate for promoting reading.

"Why is the reading habit low in Indonesia? It is because our study system does not link reading to the learning process, and because access to reading materials remains limited.”

But Sudjarwo stressed that he was talking about reading habits, not reading interest.

"In reality, even people in rural areas are really hungry for reading materials, but access is difficult," he said.

Accessibility, he added, is not only in terms of price, but also in supply and variety.

Athaillah Baderi, a senior librarian at the National Library, said that greater access to reading materials would lead to a rapid improvement in the nation’s reading habits.

"It is like a restaurant. If they are easily located, affordable and their menus are varied and meet the taste of customers, then they’ll have lots of customers," he said.

 "The interest in reading is definitively there, in cities and in villages,” said Dessy Sekar Astina, who works to promote reading. “Observation both in cities and rural areas shows that whenever reading materials are available, such as newspapers and magazines, people read them, often sharing them with others.”

Dessy, a member of Forum Indonesia Membaca (Forum for Indonesian Reading), a non-profit group dedicated to promoting interest in reading and accessibility to books, said that regardless of the quality or type of reading materials, they remain either unavailable or unaffordable in most of the country.

"Bookstores, or even newspaper kiosks, cannot be found everywhere, and they are mostly found in towns and other larger urban areas. It is the plain economic reality. Very few people can afford to buy books in rural areas," said Ganda Purnama from the Indonesian Book Workers Community.

Ganda said that when people did buy books, it was usually school textbooks for their children.

School textbooks are published by private publishers in Indonesia; they account for a large part of the education costs in the country as well as being a main source of revenue for publishers and most bookstores.

The government, Sudjarwo said, was well aware of the problem and was currently trying to improve the situation by preparing several draft laws on books and on libraries. It was also studying a plan to buy the copyright for school textbooks to allow their free distribution.

Iis Widya, a 38-year-old mother of three living in Central Jakarta, said that although she knew books were important to expand her children’s knowledge, her husband's income as a low-ranking civil servant put books out of her family's reach.

"How can I buy books when even paying for enough food for our family is already hard enough," she said, adding that she could barely afford the schoolbook needs of her two school-age children.

Books for one semester for her senior high school student son, who studies at a private school, cost Rp 700,000; her fifth grader daughter needs Rp 400,000 for her textbooks.

"My husband borrows newspapers and magazines from his friends at the office," she said.

The general inaccessibility of books has prompted many individuals and organizations to open libraries across the country, said Dessy.

"The public, as usual, has not merely waited for the government to act. We are now increasingly seeing individuals or groups opening up small libraries," Astina said.

"The trend is even stronger in rural areas, where reading materials are really scarce.”

In 2001, Ganda opened a small library in a rented shop-house in Citau, Tangerang.

"And thank God, the interest has been exceedingly high, both among children and adults," he said.

Athaillah said that libraries, at schools and outside, provided a way to improve access to reading materials. But from the some 220,000 schools in the country, less than 10 percent have libraries, he said.

"Libraries have never stood high among priorities, and even those existing in schools are not up to standards in terms of the variety and quality of books they have.”

But Hendri Yusanto, who heads the literature department at the School of Literature and Arts at the state 11^th March University in Surakarta, Central Java, said the idea of Indonesia’s low reading habit was "half fact, half myth".

In fact, he argued, while books remain a luxury for many, whenever reading materials are readily available there is high interest in reading. The growing number of small libraries attests to that.

There are no firm figures available for the number of libraries across the country, but there are a great number of organizations active in promoting their establishments.

Ganda said his library competed with radio, television and other forms of electronic entertainment to attract readers, and Dessy blames television as the major distraction keeping children from reading.

Hendri instead views audiovisual entertainment as complementary to reading, and not necessarily a threat to developing an interest in reading.

"People forget that these audiovisual inputs are also ways to transmit information.”

"Yes, I like books, especially comics," said Sendy Kurnia, a fourth grader who was reading comics at a Gramedia bookstore in Central Jakarta with a group of friends.

He said reading comics for free at bookstores was one of his favorite pastimes, but that his parents did not usually buy him books.

"But I like PlayStation better," he said, laughing with his friends.

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