Reading in Malaysia

by Yeo Wee Kwong

Do you read everyday? Malaysia has made many conscious efforts to improve and develop literacy so that it will achieve a literacy rate of 100% by the year 2020. The country still has a long way to go but there are positive indications that the literacy rate is increasing. The World Education Report (1993) states that Malaysia then had one of the lowest literacy rates (78.4%) compared to her other Southeast Asian neighbors, like Singapore (100%), Indonesia (81.6%), Thailand (93%), and the Philippines (89.7%), respectively.

Many campaigns had to be held to cope with the low literacy rate in Malaysia. For example, the Year of Readers, reading months and so on. However, it did not bring too much effect on the literacy rate. What contribute to the failure of the campaign?

No doubt that most of the students in Malaysia read for their examinations in schools merely. Busy in studying for examinations is their common excuse for not reading the books other than their think and dull reference books. Besides, less encouragement from the parents is considered as one of the factors that lead to the low literacy rate. Usually, parents ask their children to study just for the preparation of examination. Hardly to see the parents to buy some reading material other than reference books for their children to encourage reading habits among them.

Long distance of the library from the neighborhood is one of the factors too, especially for the students. Since most of them are still not allowed to drive, it is inconvenient for them to go to the library during their leisure time. One of the reasons why students don’t read is due to the expensive cost o the books. Let’s take Reader’s Digest as our example. It cost us RM15 for each book. I think that most of the students cannot afford to purchase it every month.

Some kinds of solutions have to be done to cope with this problem in Malaysia. Firstly, government can set up some reading corner in shopping complex, not only one, but every corners of the shopping complex. Isn’t it weird to see the reading corners in the shopping complex? Well, not everyone is going there for shopping complex actually. When there are reading corners in shopping complex, they can spend their time for reading instead of waiting or loitering there.

Besides, mobile library can be introduced to the most of the cities and rural area too. There are mobile library in Malaysia, but the number is very little and is insufficient to meet the needs of the residents. So, what government has to do is they have to proliferate the number of mobile library in our country and make sure that it operates following the schedule. For those students who are unable to go to the library, it is a golden opportunity for them to obtain the knowledge from the mobile library.

Other than mobile library, some adjustments have to be done on the price of the books. Since the literacy rate among the students is currently low, government has to offer special price of the books for the group of the students only. Thus, they do not have to suffer for few days of hunger just want to save money for their desired books.

Besides government, parents play an important role too. They have to change their perception towards the purpose of reading which is actually not merely for examination. They have to realize that reading is an effective way to sharpen their children’s self-discipline. So, not only reference books, parents ought to buy some suitable reading materials for their children to let them expose to the world of reading. Indirectly, the habits of reading will be slowly cultivated among their children.

No doubt that reading is the main source of knowledge. It does not cost us anything if we read. A person without knowledge is hardly to get the respect from the society. Especially in Japan, we can see everybody there is reading anytime and anyway. So, parents should encourage their children to read since they are young and more effort from the government to increase the literacy rate in our country. Thus, creating a reading society in Malaysia will not seems to be impossible.