We all know that the culture of literacy is essential, especially in realizing the vision of Golden Indonesia 2045Jakarta (ANTARA) - A strong literacy culture is essential in creating a productive nation that wields a high level of knowledge mastery, according to the National Library's Deputy for Librarian Development, Adin Bondar.
"We all know that the culture of literacy is essential, especially in realizing the vision of Golden Indonesia 2045," he remarked after attending a group discussion on literacy culture in Jakarta on Saturday.
Bondar emphasized the need for families to encourage their members to develop reading habits, including by guiding children to build their characters and emotions at early ages in the hopes of enabling them to carry on a strong literacy culture into their adulthood.
He then expressed the belief that a sound level of literacy culture could help the nation address and prevent various issues.
"For example, the issues of malnutrition and stunting stemmed not only from the factor of poverty. Such issues have also been caused by people's ignorance on what to feed their children with. In fact, we have abundant resources," he observed.
He further affirmed that all developed countries wield a sound level of literacy or reading culture since they are aware of it being the foundation for becoming a strong and productive nation.
Meanwhile, Aminudin Aziz, Head of the Language Development and Guidance Agency at the Education, Culture, Research, and Technology Ministry, noted that the government has placed the development of literacy culture as a national priority program.
Therefore, Aziz remarked that his side has been making efforts to enhance the nation's literacy culture, including by distributing as many as 15.4 million books to various educational institutions in Indonesia.
He then explained that his agency has been holding training and coaching activities for school principals and teachers, so they can genuinely optimize the books.
"We will also continue to assist them after the training," he said.
Aziz further stated that the book distribution had been focused on early childhood educational institutions in disadvantaged, frontier, and outermost regions. However, the agency aims to distribute books to all regions in Indonesia, he added.
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Translator: Sean M, Tegar Nurfitra
Editor: Sri Haryati
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