INDONESIA: Children’s Newspaper Aims to Improve Youths’ Reading Skills

By Richel Langit-Dursin

JAKARTA, Oct 3 (Asia Media Forum) — In a country with more than 400 print media outlets that cater to adult readers, Indonesia’s first and only children’s newspaper is a breath of fresh air.

Founded three years ago by a veteran journalist, ‘Berani’ believes in starting ‘em young when it comes to love of reading. The 16-page newspaper’s motto after all is, “A nation that develops is a nation that reads”.

Alarmed by the low literacy rate of Indonesian children, 64-year-old Henricus Witdarmono put up the newspaper for elementary and junior high school students in April 2006.

“We decided to come up with this newspaper after finding out that Indonesian children ranked very low among other countries in literacy, with only 30 percent understanding the material they read,” Witdarmono, also a former teacher, told the Asia Media Forum.

This figure came from the 2003 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) conducted by international think-tank, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. PISA is a system of international assessments that measures the capabilities of 15-year-olds in reading literacy, mathematics literacy, and science literacy every three years.

Based on the 2003 PISA results, Indonesian students didn’t do well in three areas — reading, mathematics, and science. Highly literate countries include Finland, South Korea, and Hong Kong, according to the study.

To encourage the children read and improve their literacy skills, Witdarmono established the newspaper a year after he retired from ‘Kompas’, the largest daily in Indonesia with a circulation of 500,000. His 48-year-old wife, Henny Rahayu, serves as the company’s directress.

“By reading the news, children will continue to inquire. They will always ask why,” said Witdarmono, who worked for ‘Kompas’ for 16 years. “They will also be aware of what’s happening around them.”

 ‘Berani’, an Indonesian term that means ‘brave’, stands for the paper’s slogan, ‘Berita Anak Indonesia’ or news for Indonesian children. For being the first Indonesian paper for children, ‘Berani’ received an award from the Indonesian Museum of Records when it was launched three years ago.

It is published from Monday to Friday and is divided into several sections, such as foreign news, special reports, and sports. It has also sections on science and technology, literature, and values. On the last page, ‘Berani’ features people’s profile.
 
The Jakarta-based daily is sold at 2,000 rupiahs (20 U.S. cents) per copy. Subscription rate per month is 39,000 rupiahs (4 dollars) for readers in Java and 45,000 rupiahs (4.7 dollars) for other places outside of Java.  The newspaper is distributed nationwide, with 80 percent of its circulation in Greater Jakarta.

‘Berani’ is sold in popular bookstores, such as Gramedia and Toko Gunung Agung, but not on the streets unlike other newspapers.

“We cannot sell ‘Berani’ on the streets due to safety reasons. Parents won’t allow their children to buy the paper from street vendors,” said Witdarmono, who is also the paper’s chief editor.

About 80 percent of the copies go to subscribers, including schools and parents. For each edition, 30,000 copies are printed by PT Gramedia, which also prints ‘Kompas’ and ‘The Jakarta Post’, one of two English dailies in Indonesia.

Together with ‘Kompas’ and other newspapers, ‘Berani’ is distributed in numerous cities and towns, including Bandung in West Java, Semarang and Yogyakarta in Central Java, Surabaya and Malang in East Java, Medan in North Sumatra, Palu in Central Sulawesi, and Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan.

Besides articles on current issues, ‘Berani’ contains interesting quotes by famous people, a definition of terms, comics, and educational games, such as Sudoku, map reading, mazes, puzzles, matching and colouring pictures. It employs seven reporters, three artists and three designers.  It gets its news from the field as well as from wire agencies.

A number of schools in Indonesia also use ‘Berani’ as a reference, including Al-Azhar and Budi Mulia, which is owned by Amien Rais, Muslim scholar and former chairman of the People’s Consultative Assembly, Indonesia’s highest legislative body.

At Santa Ursula School in Bumi Serpong Damai in Tangerang, an hour and a half away from Jakarta, students are encouraged to read ‘Berani’ every morning even for merely 15 minutes.

In March 2008, Bahasa Indonesia teachers at Binus International School Simprug in South Jakarta promoted the newspaper and asked their elementary students to subscribe.

“’Berani’ is an interesting newspaper to read. It has a lot of good news and big news about the world,” said Binus Grade 2 student Karla Margaret Ntalagewang.

“Young children like me don’t enjoy reading ‘Kompas’ and other Indonesian newspapers because they are difficult to understand. We should be happy because there is an Indonesian newspaper for us,” stressed Karla, aged seven.

‘Berani’ articles are easy to understand and are written from the children’s point of view. An editorial policy rules that each sentence should not be more than 18 words. Based on the recommendations by a child psychologist, the paper also makes sure that it does not publish news about crimes, terrorism, accidents, killings, and bombings so as not to frighten children and give them nightmares.

“’Berani’ is informative, but it has to make some improvements. It should feature popular people such as leaders, scientists, and artists, not people whose lives are not interesting,” said Binus Grade 4 student Therese Ken Maya.

“It would be much better if ‘Berani’ adds more pages and increase the number of articles written in English. It would also be more fun if we can read more short stories in ‘Berani’,” added Therese, aged 10.

Witdarmono, however, stressed that the paper will not be able to increase its pages as children’s reading span in one sitting is around 25 minutes.

“If we increase the number of pages, children will not be able to withstand reading the paper for so long. They also have a right to play,” said the former Japan correspondent of ‘Kompas’.

‘Berani’ is mainly written in Bahasa Indonesia with only one page dedicated to English-language articles, uses font size 11, and measures a bit larger than ‘Time’ magazine.

The English page was based on the request of state-owned schools, which needed some English teaching materials to improve the skills of the students in the language. Bahasa Indonesia is the medium of instruction in the country of around 237 million people.

Based on ‘Berani’s’ survey, the readers’ favourite sections are the foreign and sports news.

Aside from motivating children to read, ‘Berani’ also aims to help in improving the writing skills of students. The newspaper encourages children to contribute special reports or literary articles  — with pay — for its Tuesday and Friday editions.

Apart from accommodating student visits to its office, ‘Berani’ organises workshops for teachers as well as students on writing reports, news and features.

The newspaper also educates students about relevant issues and events. In March this year, prior to the Indonesian direct presidential election, it organised a children’s election to increase their awareness about democracy and politics.

The idea came from Witdarmono’s elder daughter Amanda Putri, an education student at Boston University and 2008 Miss Indonesia for Education, who was inspired by the run-up to the United States presidential election last year.

‘Berani’, however, is not spared from readers’ complaints. Islamic schools returned copies of the paper’s edition that featured the scientific evolution of man, because they didn’t believe that men originated from apes.

The newspaper also upset some of its Muslim readers when it published a picture of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with a number of Indonesian students last February 19. Some Muslim conservatives were concerned about the apparent closeness of Indonesia with the U.S.

On the other hand, some Catholic and Christian readers think that ‘Berani’ is a Muslim-owned paper due to Witdarmono’s ‘H.’ initial preceding his name as it appeared in the paper’s staff box. They thought that the letter indicates Haji or Haja, which means a Muslim man or woman who has gone to perform the annual religious pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The letter, however, stands for Henricus, the founder-cum-chief editor’s Christian name.

 ‘Berani’ also ensures that the advertisements it publishes do not deceive children. ‘Berani’ edits the advertisements before they get printed, as the paper believes that children still have difficulty distinguishing facts from opinion.  As a result, advertisers have been hard to come by.

The paper’s aim is to be read by more than 100,000 students in the country, as awareness about the necessity to read remains low among Indonesian children.

“Our competitor is not other newspapers and magazines, but the television. Children prefer to watch TV instead of reading.  We hope to change that attitude,” stressed Witdarmono, who in his ‘Berani’ office displays a huge laminated poster that reads “Change, We Can”.  (END/IPSAP/RL/LLC/021009)