Jokowi Asks to Allocate Village Fund for Development of Libraries
14 September 2017 17:06 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) plans to allocate some of the existing village funds to build libraries in rural areas following the requests from literacy activists.
“I will take care of that (the allocation for libraries),” said Jokowi during the inauguration of the National Library in Central Jakarta today, September 14.
As it is publically known, numerous polls revealed that Indonesia is one of the countries with lowest literacy levels which has made President Jokowi determined to improve the interest of Indonesian people towards literature. One of the initial steps is by eliminating the cost of shipping books on the 17th of every month.
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The government has allocated Rp60 trillion funds which will be handed to 75,000 villages in Indonesia. Jokowi promises to keep on watching the development of the projects regarding the attempts to improve the interest of Indonesian people to literature and will impose sanctions if the programs cannot be realized.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Education and Culture Muhadjir Effendi hopes that the use of village funds to develop regional libraries will actually be realized. In most cases, village funds had been allocated for the development of infrastructures in village areas, which has produced 66,000 kilometers of public roads, 511,000 meters bridges, 15,000 units of clean water and much more.
ISTMAN MP