"Hatta has so many good ideas. I think that it is closely related to his lifetime reading habit. Hatta and his reading habit should be taken as a good example by millennials," he said when visiting Hatta`s home here on Wednesday.
During his visit to the two-floor house of Hatta, who proclaimed Indonesia`s independence along with Soekarno, commonly known as Bung Karno, on Aug 17, 1945, Uno entered each room inside it, including the ones belonging to Hatta and his uncle.
Uno, the running mate of Prabowo Subianto in competing with the Joko Widodo-Ma`ruf Amin pair in the upcoming presidential race, was briefed by a guide who told him about Hatta`s childhood and how he was raised up by his family.
"From this home, we can obviously see an important role that a family has played in educating its kids. We can see how Hatta was educated to become an honest and disciplined person," he noted.
Before leaving Hatta`s home, Uno took pictures and shook hands with a crowd of people who intentionally waited for him.
The calls for the Indonesian millennials to imitate Hatta`s lifetime reading habit is so relevant to the dire need of Indonesia to become one of the world`s literate nations.
Antara noted that as the world`s fourth most populous country, Indonesia is yet to be able to put itself into the list of the world?s most literate nations.
John W. Miller`s study (CCSU, 2016) shows that the top 10 most literate nations are Finland, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States of America, Germany, Latvia, and the Netherlands.
The study of Miller, noted researcher of the Central Connecticut State University, further revealed that Indonesia ranked 60th out of 61 countries. Its rank was just better than that of Botswana, but it was far left behind by Singapore (36) and Malaysia (53).
His study synthesized "literacy achievement tests (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study and Programme for International Student Assessment) and literate behavior characteristics (population, newspapers, libraries, years of schooling)" (2016).
Miller argued that a nation's literate behaviors contribute to its success and failure in dealing with the demands of the world`s knowledge-based economics.
Reporting by Syahrul Rahmat and Ira febrianti, Rahmad Nasution
Reporter: Antara
Editor: Fardah Assegaf
Copyright © ANTARA 2019
