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Reading Literacy of Students in Indonesia is Still Low

Conference Paper · November 2021

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Nadira Hanindhita Febriana

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 Reading Literacy of Students in Indonesia is Still Low

Nadira Hanindhita Febriana

5002211092

Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology

ABSTRACT

The study results of the Programme for International Student Assessment 2018 (PISA)
show that the reading literacy of Indonesian students is below average. Meanwhile, the ability
to read is very important in everyday life and in order to develop an advanced and educated
generation. In addition, the ability to read is also important so that a person can play an effective
role in society. This lack of reading literacy is caused by a lack of interest in reading or lack of
accessibility to reading. Therefore, it is necessary to make efforts to overcome the low reading
literacy of Indonesian students. Some of the efforts that can be done are through the “Gerakan
Literasi Sekolah” program and the provision of various and latest books as well as equitable
distribution of books, especially in frontier, outermost, and least developed regions.

Keywords : Indonesia, literacy, reading

INTRODUCTION

Based on the results of the Program for International Student Assessment 2018 (PISA)
study released by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) as
the organizer on Tuesday, December 3, 2019, it was shown that the ability of Indonesian
students to read achieved an average score of 371 , with an average OECD score of 487
(Kemendikbud, 2019a). Thus, Indonesia is ranked 6th from the bottom or 74th. Meanwhile,
China is in first place with an average score of 555. Singapore is in second place with an
average score of 459, and Macau is in third place with an average score of 525 (Tohir, 2019).
In more detail, based on the results of the PISA study, 30% of Indonesian students are at least
Level 2 in reading ability. At a minimum, these students can identify a main idea from a
medium-length reading, find information based on explicit, sometimes even complex criteria,
and can find the purpose and form of the text when explicitly directed to do so (OECD, 2019).
Based on these results, the government is increasingly trying to find strategic steps to improve
the reading literacy of Indonesian students. This is because reading literacy is important in the
context of self-improvement, personal branding, professional development, schooling, and
national development (Rintaningrum, 2019).

Reading Literacy

According to OECD in Rintaningrum (2009) reading literacy is the ability to

understand, use, and reflect on reading with the aim of achieving goals, increasing knowledge
and potential, and participating effectively in people's lives. According to Rintaningrum
(2009), reading is an aspect that is needed for students because reading is the basis for learning
all science materials. In fact, a study shows that students with low reading skills will
automatically have difficulty understanding in the learning process (Rintaningrum et al., 2017).

Factors Causing Low Reading Literacy in Indonesia

Factors that cause a lack of reading literacy for students in Indonesia, including that of
internal factors such as lack of interest of the students to read. According to Muhibbin Syah in
Afrom (2013), the influence of the low ability students' reading is lack of interest in reading
and poor reading habits so that students' reading skills are not trained. In addition, external
factors involved can be in the form of limited reading facilities and infrastructure such as the
availability of libraries and various reading books. Most books provided in many school’s
libraries are textbooks used for learning in classroom.

Strategic Steps That Can Be Taken as A Handling Effort

Strategic steps that can be taken as an effort to overcome the lack of reading literacy for students
in Indonesia are as follows.

1. Promoting the “Gerakan Literasi Sekolah” program

 Through the Ministerial regulation number 23 of 2015, the Ministry of Education
launched the “Gerakan Literasi Sekolah” (GLS) which is a program to create a school
environment with literate students (Hidayat et al., 2018). This program is carried out with 15
minutes of reading activities. Schools can choose to schedule reading time at the beginning,
middle, or end of the lesson according to their respective conditions and schedules (Wandasari,
2017). One of the goals of this program is to familiarize students with a reading culture.
However, for the implementation of this program to run effectively, it is necessary to have
supervision from the teacher. The problem is, there are still students who use this literacy time
for other activities, such as playing or chatting with friends.

2. Provision of Various and Latest Books as well as Equalization of Books Distribution

In addition to efforts to increase interest and reading habits, such as the “Gerakan
Literasi Sekolah (GLS)”, the step needs to be accompanied by the provision of a variety of up-
to-date and diverse books, and equitable distribution of books. There are still regions in
Indonesia, especially outside Java, which are still having difficulty accessing books. For
example, an area that belongs to the 3T (Frontier, Outermost, and Least Developed) areas. In
Law no. 3 of 2017 concerning the Book System (UU Sisbuk) it is stated that there is a state
desire for the development of a reading culture and the availability of reading books for all
citizens. Article 8 of the Book System Law stipulates that the public (general) has the right to
have easy access to quality books. Likewise, Article 10 of the Book System Law stipulates that
people in the frontier, outermost, least developed areas, remote indigenous communities, and
those who have experienced disasters are entitled to book access services (Purwanda & Syahril,
2021).

One form of efforts to provide books and equalize distribution of books that has been
carried out is in 2019, the working group from the Ministry of Education and Culture, the
National Literacy Movement or Gerakan Literasi Nasional (GLN), carried out the printing and
delivery of 2,402,320 copies of books from 60 titles of literacy reading materials to 47,768
schools at various levels, 658 Community Reading Parks or Taman Bacaan Masyarakat
(TBM), as well as 40 libraries located in 3T areas spread over 27 provinces. (Kemendikbud,
2019b). In addition, the provision of digital libraries such as iPusnas is also one of the efforts
made to increase reading interest and reading literacy ability of students and the community.
However, there is still a need for the development of this digital library. The problem is, the
comparison of existing books with potential readers is not balanced. There are more potential
readers than the number of books available, so readers need to queue up first if they want to
borrow a book and it is not uncommon for the line to be very long, so it takes a long time to
get a book loan. Thus, it is necessary to increase the number of available books and add
variations to the available books.

Conclusion

Based on the results of the PISA study, the reading ability of students in Indonesia is
still low. This is caused by a lack of interest in reading and lack of accessibility to reading.
Because the ability to read is important to build an advanced and educated generation, efforts
need to be made to overcome these problems, including by promoting the Gerakan Literasi
Sekolah (GLS) or School Literacy Movement and the provision of varied books and equitable
distribution of books.

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