Indonesian language study could be wiped-out from Australian universities within ten years

Despite Indonesia being one of Australia's closest neighbours, figures indicate Australian students are showing little interest in studying the language.

• 2012 travel warning impacted on Australian students travelling to Indonesia.
• More students took Indonesian at Year 12 level in the early 1970s.
• Academics call for further steps to reverse decline.

It was hoped the softening of a travel warning to the country in 2012 might change that, but one expert said Indonesian studies might be completely wiped out from Australian universities in a decade.

 

An Australian Government travel warning issued after the Bali bombings discouraged most Australian schools from sending their students to Indonesia.

Professor Tim Lindsey, an expert in Indonesian law at the University of Melbourne, and fluent speaker of the language, said it has been one contributor to the demise of Indonesian studies in Australian institutions.

"If children can't get an immersion opportunity to study a foreign language, that will limit their capacity and it's a reasonable decision, I think, for parents and children to make, that without immersion, their capacity to learn a foreign language will be weakened," he said.

"So, this fed into a really big falling off in schools, Indonesian language teaching, and that naturally flowed on into our universities."

Linda Keat, an Indonesian language teacher at Mullumbimby High School in northern NSW, said her students were the first in Australia to return to Indonesia when the Government downgraded its travel advice. She said the school planned to send another group of students later this year.
"It's become very, very difficult to maintain programs like this in schools, especially Indonesian, because of the travel ban, so it's been a real struggle," Ms Keat said.

Germany may overtake Australia in teaching Indonesian

Professor Lindsey said he was disappointed that fewer Australian students were learning the language today.

"Indonesian studies in Australia was quite strong in the 1970s, but since then, for a range of reasons, it's declined quite significantly," he said.
"There seems to be a strange ironic link between the fact that during the period when Indonesia opened up and democratised after Suharto fell, the numbers of students in Australia interested in studying Indonesian has declined.

"There were, in fact, more students taking Indonesian at Year 12 level across Australia in the early 1970s than there are now, and that's in absolute numbers and despite the fact that the population was 30 per cent smaller then."

Professor Lindsey said if the current rate of decline continued, Indonesian language would not be an option at Australian universities in a decade.
"So, we've seen the numbers of schools teaching Indonesian fall quite dramatically over the last 15 years, and that's followed through — with a slight delay of course — in many of our universities," he said.

"And a significant number of universities around Australia have now dropped the teaching of Indonesian language, and we're reaching a position where Germany may have more universities teaching Indonesian than Australia.

"Australia is the only Western tradition country in Asia, yet it rates the lowest among all OECD countries by a long shot for second language skills.

"And if current trends continue it may end up teaching very little Asian languages except to kids of an Asian background or context."

'It seems like policy failure', professor says

Professor Lindsey said he welcomed the resumption of high school students travelling to Indonesia, but suggested more steps were needed to reverse the decline.

"It seems like some sort of major policy failure that we should be in the Asian century, located in Asia, and looking at the collapse of Asia-literate capacity outside people of an Asian origin," he said.
"We do, rightly or wrongly, face a situation of declining Asia-literacy both in terms of languages and Asian studies.

"If that is seen as something necessary, then in the end you are going to need to have governments investing funding in subsidising Asian languages and Asian studies in schools."

Samatha Turnbull is a journalist with the ABC News and this article first appeared on the ABC's On-Line service in May 2016.