Adrian Vickers' Indonesia blog

A recent item posted on Facebook relates how a national test of the language standard of Indonesian teachers of English reveals that, as we suspected, the standard is very low:
"Republic of Indonesia: Berdasarkan Test of English for International Communication (ToEIC), dari sekitar 600 guru sekolah rintisan sekolah berstandar internasional (RSBI) SMP, SMA, dan SMK di seluruh Indonesia, terungkap bahwa penguasaan bahasa Inggris guru dan kepala sekolahnya rendah."

The low standard of English remains one of the biggest barriers against Indonesia being internationally competitive. For example in academia, few lecturers, let alone students, can communicate effectively in English, meaning that writing of books and journal articles for international audiences is almost impossible. Many of my colleagues have raised questions about levels of English comprehension amongst students, for example those reading difficult theoretical texts.

Such language problems also mean that it is very hard to find good translators. I have been very lucky with a forthcoming book, my publisher, Larasan Sejarah, has employed Arif Prasetyo, a gifted poet, whose renderings of my English have been almost faultless (I think he got caught out by one Australian idiom only). Sadly for many other books being translated, this is not the usual, and given that Indonesian publishers do not usually pay copy editors and proof readers, the quality of many publications remains dubious.

Sadly, I have seem seem recent examples of translations from Indonesian into English, in which no native speakers have been involved (for example in a new Art magazine, ARTi). Defenders of communicative language would say that the resulting Englonesian (problems with plural, word order, conjugation, possessive etc) is acceptable as long as the results are intelligible, but unfortunately this is not the case. The big disappointment here is that such new art journals that have important messages to convey will not reach international audiences.

Some thoughts on the 20th anniversary of my book http://www.usyd.edu.au/sydney_ideas_quarterly/articles/society/01_society.shtml

Those of us in Asian Studies have been waiting for a long time for a Prime Minister like Kevin Rudd who wants to make Australia 'Asia literate'. The Rudd Government has provided a positive boost to the morale of Asian Studies, but will the rhetoric be matched with a clear plan as to how to achieve such Asia literacy?

On the education front, there has been a restored version of the former Asian languages strategy, but only at a rate of about two-thirds of the program that the Howard Government cut out, meaning that the funding translates into tiny amounts by the time it gets to school levels. Given the indifference towards Asia amongst many educational administrators, you wonder whether they will think it worth their while spending time applying for a program that only gives a maximum of $20,000 per school.

The travel warnings continue, meaning that the program will probably not fund anything that involves actually exposing teaching to time in Indonesia.

One of the first effects of the initial attempt by the Rudd Government to show that it was tough economically was a cut to the National Library, resulting in the scaling back of the Indonesian publications acquisitions scheme. I found out on my recent trip to Europe that this means the National Library no longer goes out to acquire publications itself, but relies on the Dutch KITLV program to provide it with second copies of their acquisitions. How bizarre is that?

In general there is a total indifference to any Arts links with Asia from the Rudd Government, and the current minister, whose music I much admire, shows no interest in Asia. At the Australia-Indonesia conference earlier this year, the Arts received short shrift, in spite of the way that cultural programs have been so important in providing basic awareness of Asia in Australia. Some of my friends and students, for example, are involved in schools programs teaching kids in rural areas about Indonesian dance and music, but have to be supported by private bodies for this.

I'm a big fan of Slumdog Millionaire, but Indonesia has shown that it can produce films of high calibre on similar topics. There has been a lot of cynicism expressed by Indonesians about the recent elections (or more specifically about political candidates), but I recently saw a powerful reminder that there are still idealists out there. The film Laskar Pelangi, based on a book of the same name, is one of the biggest hits in Indonesian cinema, and the book has been hugely popular.

Laksar Pelangi is a story about how the education system denies access to the poorest, because even the so-called state system relies on having a certain degree of wealth for access. The story is about a struggling Muhammadiyah School on Belitung, and the idealism that keeps that school going: the conviction that the poorest in society need access to education. The film is a great analysis of how class works in Indonesia, but without being heavy-handedly political, and is really inspiring.

A warning though to make sure you've got a box of tissues with you, it's very moving without being overly sentimental. The local accents are great too!

The Australian government persists with its travel warnings against Indonesia, despite heavy lobbying from Indonesian and Australian groups. Indonesia is a level 4, "Reconsider the need to travel" country, along with Saudi Arabia, Haiti and (now) India, while Israel, despite the recent attacks, remains level 3, "High degree of caution."

"We continue to receive credible information that terrorists could be planning attacks in Indonesia" has remained the justification for years, and this was reiterated by the Minister recently (and uncritically reported as something new by the media). The Australian government has been crying "wolf" like this for a long time, and all that this line does is reduce their credibility. Like the story of "the boy who cried wolf", there may indeed be real terrorists out there, but how do we tell? Wouldn't it be better to issue such warnings only when there is a real likelihood of attack, instead of as a blanket coverall to protect the government from media criticism in case something really does happen? Like the previous government, this one is more concerned with spin than providing a realistic assessment of what Indonesia is like to the Australian public.

While notices of the death of Bali have been appearing for nearly 100 years, Susi Johnston's latest analysis of the island's problems, 'Does Bali need a reboot?' <http://susijohnston.com/> is an important contribution to analysing how the tourist marketing authorities and those responsible for Bali's infrastructure have lost the plot.

Mind you I don't agree with all of Susi's analysis, especially her view that wealthy westerners deserve their luxury holidays because they work so hard. This is an insult to workers everywhere who get run into the ground by their employers but would never in a million years be able to afford a good bottle of red while watching the sunset in a luxury hotel at Jimbaran. Some of those holidaying on Bali are indirect employers of the workers of the Third World, and even financiers who decide that for the sake of improving productivity or to make up for bad investment decisions, industries should shed thousands of jobs.