Poor planning and a weak digital culture are being blamed for the failure of the government’s e-book program, now in its second year, in growing its readership among students in Jakarta.
Several students and teachers told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday, the second day of the new school term, that they were not even aware of the existence of the Rp 20 billion (US$2.2 million) government
program.
Reva, a junior at state high school SMAN 70 in Bulungan, South Jakarta, said that even if the school
implemented the policy, she would refuse to use it.
“I think I would have trouble accessing e-books. It’s difficult,” she said, referring to the PDF format of books available at the program’s website, bse.depdiknas.go.id.
The policy was initially aimed at countering high book prices by turning to the digital world to make books more affordable and accessible to more students.
The government, through the National Education Ministry, allocated Rp 20 billion for the program,
The fund was to be used for, among other things, buying the copyrights of widely used school textbooks and uploading them in digital form to the Internet. It was expected that the students would be able to download the books for free and easily print them.
Initially, the program was launched with around 400 books on various subjects. Ninety-five of the books were for elementary schools, 72 for junior high schools, 24 for senior high schools and 216 for vocational schools.
As of Tuesday, 901 books are available on the website. There are more books for elementary schools (292 books), junior high schools (126), and senior high schools (279). But the number of books for vocational schools has decreased to 204.
With most students and teachers expressing doubts about the program, it would seem the e-book project remains a utopian idea .
“I rarely use the Internet to help me with my homework,” Reva said.
Another criticism came from Elyn, a senior at state high school SMAN 78 in Kemanggisan, West Jakarta, who is also unfamiliar with e-books. “How could someone read such a heavy reference like physics from a computer?” she said.
State high school SMAN 6 teacher Hamid S. said his students refused to read printed e-books because they were dull in terms of content and appearance.
“The school once printed out e-books and them displayed in the library. The students simply ignored them,” he said.
However, Lardi, the management unit head at the Jakarta Education Agency’s high school division, said the agency had informed schools in Jakarta about the program by summoning their principals. “It’s up to them whether they choose to run the program,” he said. (ipa)
