Insights about Reading Competences of Students in Public Schools in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia

This article was aimed to investigate the insights about reading competences of students in public schools in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. In particular, it was aimed to explain what and how reading competences of students looked like especially when they were related to their learning achievements at school. The article employed a library-based research design as there was little chance to do a case study to gain in-depth analysis related to the issues being investigated due to time constraint. As this was a library- based research, the main data collection technique was based on evidences derived from extensive literatures related to reading competences of high school students in this province. The analysis was mainly based on the content analytical point of views. The findings suggest that a number of factors strongly affected high school students’ reading competences. Despite the case, it was identified that learning and reading cultures of Indonesian students predominantly influenced the ways they approached and made use of reading materials at their hands which eventually led to their reading achievements. The results of the research suggest that as students now live in the era of advanced communication and information technologies, provisions of these technological-based learning devices are inevitable in high schools. Moreover, the local education authorities urgently need to provide adequate reading text books and other interesting reading materials to students. In addition, it is to inform teachers and other educational stakeholders to create learning atmospheres in which students were interested in reading activities from which they could develop their reading cultures for the future.