MATARAM, KOMPAS.com - East Lombok district still has 20,300 illiterates among its residents but the local education office hopes to reduce the number to zero by the end of 2012.
H Zubaidi, head of informal education afffairs at the district’s education office, said the office would make special efforts to reach zero illiteracy in the region by the end of the year. Actually, he said, by Unicef standards the district was already free of illiteracy as the UN agency had stipulated that if a district or city still had 18,000 to 20,000 illiterates or 10 percent of population that region or city could already be considered as freed from illiteracy.
The district’s illiteracy eradication drive would target illiterates aged between 15 years and 59 years while those 60 years or older would be difficult to teach something new, he said.
"East Lombok district can actually be said to be already free of illiteracy but the provincial West Nusatenggara government wants all districts and cities in the region to really achieve zero percent illiteracy."
