Commemorated International Literacy Day, ITB Library Held Literacy Discussion

September 09, 2014

By Bangkit Dana Setiawan

Editor Bangkit Dana Setiawan

BANDUNG, itb.ac.id - International Literacy Day is celebrated annualy by every country in the world on September 8th. In the commemoration of International Litercay Day, American Corner ITB through American Spaces forum held discussion about Literacy on Monday (09/09/14) at Multipurpose room at ITB Library 1st floor. This event is opened for public, discussed a lot of the importance of literacy to individuals, community, and public and this discussion is guided by Janet Long, ITB English Language Fellow.

Literacy is not just a person's ability to read and write anything, but it must be followed by the ability to understand the text. Literacy skills are the gateway to achieve educational excellence which is success key in the life of democracy society. Based on data from UNESCO, the iliteracy level in Indonesia still in the range of 12 million popullation. The data also showed that the younger Indonesian population, so the higher level of literacy. It means that now, Indonesian literacy level is getting better. "Indonesia's economy continues to grow, so does the community. That is way education standard must also continue to evolve with the changes," said Janet.

Even so, a high level of literacy does not mean much because of the low interest in reading of Indonesian people with a ratio of one in a thousand. This shoes that Indonesia is able to read, but less interest to touch the book. The results, based on the report of the study Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2012 ranked Indonesia's education, especially in mathematics, science, and reading was ranked 64th of 65 countries. "It shows that the literacy proclem in Indonesia is very serious. Fact, reading is the only way to become better in any case," said Moko Darjatmoko (Civil Engineering Alumni ITB 1970), one of the participants.

It certainly should be a common concern to improve the literacy skills and interest in reading for the betterment of education in Indonesia. Therefore, the researchers are currently conducting research in the field of education, Moko introduced literacy community that she built in ITB about on year ago. The name of community is Komunitas Literasi Ganesha, the community aims to help anyone that is able and willing to read properly. Usually this community held its regular meeting every Friday with the location alternating between the ITB Library and ITB Comlabs. "The key is only one, namely reading. If you do not read, then you will not know where you are going and you are going to lose," said Moko.