HEY OZZIES - TAKE A LOOK NEXT DOOR

 WHEN WILL WE  TREAT INDONESIA SERIOUSLY?

Guarantee: This report is free of US political toxins. The contents are purely local.

The title question deserves a cynic’s response: Only when the country next door becomes  a military dictatorship and mates with China.  Then we might wake up.

Indonesia is seventy times bigger than Bali where most Australians get their  experience of beach-and-Bintangs, probably imagining the other 37 provinces are much the same.  They’re not.

If  the  political scientists’  ‘arc of instability’ ever spanned the region, Indonesia isn’t there now.

The world's fourth largest nation with an impressive 5.3 per cent growth rate, has become an aid donor  and is dashing towards superpower status.  It’s not within coo-ee of struggling Pacific Island states crying for aid and getting attention in spades by playing footsie with the PRC.

Here’s proof we’re not serious: A decade ago the then Coalition Government paraded its New Colombo Plan  - a “signature initiative” whatever that means.  

The idea was to “lift knowledge of the Indo-Pacific …by supporting Australian undergraduates to undertake study, language training and internships in the region.”  Applause all round.

The name has a history: In 1951 a multi-state meeting in the Sri Lankan capital set up the show to help "developing countries".  We offered scholarships for  Southeast Asians to study in Australia. More claps.

 Some of Indonesia’s future leaders got to know Down Under and build lasting mateships.  That generation has largely passed.  The CP is now involved in drug use reduction, gender affairs and climate change.

The NCP reverses the original intent and looks fine till the data is analysed.  Students can go to any one of the 40 countries in the scheme. So far 12,000 Aussies have visited Indonesia across three decades, mostly for short courses.

But how to find a uni, a visa and help when all turns turtle? Students can go it alone, but it's easier using  ACICIS,  the Australian Consortium for In-Country Studies. It was an idea of now-retired Professor David Hill of Perth's Murdoch University.

This year the agency celebrates its 30^th birthday and reports some achievements.

More than 4,000 alumni are working in key areas of government, here and overseas.   In 2012 the now largely forgotten Australia in the Asian Century White Paper described the consortium as a “successful model for in-country learning”.

Last year Hill was given an Indonesian award for “promoting collaboration … and the Indonesian language.”

Despite the persistence of Hill and others, Canberra prefers to focus on the Pacific, particularly islands where Beijing has been poking around for niches to embed.

We wear our monolingualism with pride.  That’s gross; the Jakarta Post has told its readers what sort of neighbours they’re lumbered with by reporting:  “Australian students participating in Indonesian-language programs has hit a historic low …this trend could have an adverse effect on the broader bilateral ties.”

Ten Indonesian unis are involved with ACICIS.  Students keen to better understand our regional mates - as all governments urge but rarely facilitate - have access to 25 courses. They span from law to farming - plus the essentials - language and culture.

Every student backpacker is a de-facto diplomat showing through their involvement and enthusiasm that Aussies aren’t all Kuta hoons - or in the posse of America's Deputy Sheriff, as John Howard once reportedly positioned his nation.

But here’s the issue:  The ACICIS report  reveals that last year  it “assisted 436 Australian and international students to undertake study in Indonesia.”

Good on ya - except that Indonesian Government figures show the Republic has more than 4,000 “institutes of higher learning”.  Though only 184 are public they cater for 3.38 million students.

Many private unis are small and run by religious organisations and corporates. Quality is mixed and offerings are limited.  They have around 4.5 million enrollees.

The top campus is the public Universitas Indonesia. Internationally  it ranks badly at 206, even lower on some assessment sites.

Overseas study enthusiasts prefer China; Indonesia is seventh on the choice scale, just ahead of South Korea - although in second place (after Japan) in the Indo-Pacific.

A Lowy Institute report claimed “Indonesia’s education system has been a high-volume, low-quality enterprise that has fallen well short of the country’s ambitions for an ‘internationally competitive’ system.”

That was written in 2018.  There’s been some movement though little evidence of major reform in the past six years.  Jakarta also has to stir the possum if it wants its unis to draw foreigners.

As Indonesia has eleven citizens for every Aussie we need at least 4,500 students exploring the archipelago every year, not for quickies but long term.  Even then we’d only be a spit on the surface.

However the number sent through ACICIS is roughly the same as in 2018.

Juggling figures like this is a clumsy exercise taking no account of dropouts, course changes, policy shifts, definitions and other factors like Covid  - but it hammers the nail that we’re just not dinkum about the nation next door.

Next year  a semester in Indonesia is likely to cost a student in fees, fares, insurance and living costs up to $16,000, though this can be offset by NCP support.

 Adaptive frugals can get by on less (and learn more) if they live like locals.

ACICIS gets 2.53 per cent of the NCP’s mobility funding (mainly short courses) and is paying scholarships for long-term students. There are 120 competitive NCP scholarships for top students nominated by their campus.

That’s for any one of 40 countries.

ACICIS director Liam Prince said “the key blockages are  in the lack of clear, curriculum-embedded pathways to a semester in the Indo-Pacific by the Australian universities.

“Through size, proximity and geopolitical significance, Australia must have a constructive, mutually beneficial relationship.

“Australia’s side is in trying to see the world from an Indonesian perspective; it’s one of the necessary conditions for fulfilling the potential of the bilateral relationship.”

Former PM Paul Keating said: “We find our security in Asia, we find it by being useful in the Asian community, we find it by building coalitions and this is an imperative.”

It’s an idea still to be bought by  the electorate. Otherwise it would demand the federal government gets earnest about urging unis to prioritise  Asian skills.

Not everyone wants to do a PhD in Old Javanese but at all levels the curious and talented will want a taste of the New Indonesia. They need encouragement -  for all our sakes now and in the years ahead.

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First published in Pearls & Irritations,24 July 2024:  https://johnmenadue.com/when-will-we-treat-indonesia-seriously/

DIPLOMATS IN THE DESA

 

                                    Never mind the width, feel the quality

 They’re standouts in any language, often tall, blond, and looking as though they’ve just been hit by a runaway road train top-heavy with cultural and communication overburden.

 

They’re nothing like our standard exports, braggarts trashing Bali bars in loud shirts and louder voices.  These youth are soberly dressed and polite, though floundering to make themselves understood.  They’re also the lucky ones who found the courses they wanted.

 

Even those who shone in their Indonesian studies back home struggle with the chaos and contradictions.  Like discovering the national language is not most citizens’ first tongue and that slang and acronyms confuse even the locals.

 

Yet these young Aussies are the best ambassadors we’ll ever produce.  Most will battle through, engage and charm.  The dedicated will convert months of intense experience into years of understanding.  In the decades ahead as parents, teachers, bureaucrats, business people or whatever, they’ll help leaven our insularity and racism.

 

On the other side becak (pedicab) pedal-pushers, street sellers and buskers who know nothing about Australia other than it’s a kangaroo-plagued British colony (the Union Jack on the flag is proof enough), might remember Miss Jane from Sydney and Mr Jack from Melbourne for their friendliness, and smile on us all.

 

Many Oz students have made it to our neighbour nations through a praiseworthy Federal Government scheme paying our brightest to try an Asian adventure – the New Colombo Plan.  Then came this year’s budget and a little-noticed $7 million cut to the expected $50 million allocation.

 

The slashers claim the 14 per cent loss is due to Covid-19, and – of course – only temporary.  Students can’t go overseas so monies allocated for the NCP will be spent on desk drivers in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, mainly in Canberra.

Before coronavirus crippled travel, the NCP was wholly or partly funding about 10,000 students a year heading to 40 countries.  The majority got short-term ‘mobility grants’ worth between $3,000 and $7,000.  There were also around 100 meaty scholarships – up to $69,000 – for heavy-duty applicants.  Curiously there’s nothing between the two extremes.

DFAT says the NCP ‘aims to lift knowledge of the Indo-Pacific in Australia by supporting Australian undergraduates to study and undertake internships in the region ... (ensuring the students) have the skills and work-based experiences to contribute to our domestic and the regional economy.

‘The NCP is intended to be transformational, deepening Australia's relationships in the region, both at the individual level and through expanding university, business and other links.’

To get a NCP cheque students must first show they’re serious about knowing their neighbours – and that’s not easy.  Hamish Curry, Executive Director of Melbourne University’s Asia Education Foundation, has written that  ‘the student cohort (for Indonesian) is now half what it was just over a decade ago, with classes potentially in danger of disappearing completely in many schools.’  The Asian Studies Association estimates only 12 unis still offer the language.

Despite the teaching slump, interest in Indonesia has been edging upwards though numbers are minuscule.  In 2012 just 442 students crossed the Arafura Sea.  In 2019 it was above 2,000.

Lest this growth lure readers into thinking we’re getting as close to Indonesia as we are to the USA, consider this: Around 75 per cent stayed only a month or less in the Republic. Before the plague, more than a million Australians flew to Kuta every year spending similar time to surf, tan and booze.

The NCP isn’t the first project urging school-leavers to try Asia rather than Europe or North America for the rite of passage Kiwis call OE (Overseas Experience). Last century a small group of academics started the non-profit Australian Consortium for 'In-Country' Indonesian Studies (ACICIS), most for a semester or more.

The consortium also organises six-week professional practicum programs during the summer vacation.  These cover business, the creative arts, law, agriculture and sustainable tourism.

We now have stats coming from outside government. The Australian Universities International Directors' Forum collects info on students chasing an ‘international study experience’. The 37 reporting universities claim more than 50,000 went on ‘learning abroad’ programmes.  Indonesia ranks behind China, the USA, UK, Italy and Japan as the favoured destination.

Is this a reason for cheering?  Every pre-Covid year more than one million domestic students were enrolled on our campuses.  (Indonesia’s population is around 11 times greater than Australia’s with more than six million in tertiary education.)

Writes Curry: ‘Asia-literacy matters. It’s not simply a nice-to-have skill or a matter of knowing our geography, it’s about having the intercultural understanding and the intercultural capability to connect, share, and cooperate for a shared future with our sphere of the world.’

Liam Prince, the Perth-based director of ACICIS, told Pearls & Irritations: ‘It’s not just about the numbers. It’s about the quality of the engagement. There are roughly 3,500 ACICIS alumni now, working at various stages of their professional careers all across government, media, the public service, business and not-for-profit sectors.

‘Arguably, this alumni body with direct experience of living and studying in Indonesia stands to have a greater impact on the re-alignment of Indonesia within the Australian public imagination than the one million Australians who regularly holiday in Bali.

 

‘Much of what Australian governments, universities, and the public know about what happens in Indonesia in any given year, they now know courtesy of the work of talented and committed ACICIS alumni.’  

 

First published in Pearls & Irritations, 28 May 2021: https://johnmenadue.com/never-mind-the-width-feel-the-quality/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LET 'EM SPEAK ENGLISH

 

                                                        Building a nation of Asian illiterates

Did university administrators know of federal government policies to boost learning about Indonesia before they rushed to slash and burn? Or maybe they knew but are too blinkered to care.

Earlier this year Melbourne’s La Trobe trumpeted its wares: ‘Step into the world of Indonesian culture and language. With Indonesian studies you’ll master listening, speaking, writing and reading a new language while exploring Indonesia’s rich history, politics, art and economics.’

Sounds inviting. Yet a few months later the same campus said it will shutter Indonesian because of consistently low enrolments.

Now it’s the turn of a pioneer in cross-cultural education to dump Indonesian. 

Murdoch academics led by (now retired) Professor David Hill started the non-profit Australian Consortium for ‘In-Country’ Indonesian Studies 25 years ago.  The scheme has since sent more than 3,500 students to unis in the Republic.

If the two campuses swing the scythe the ambitions of smart school-leavers to become diplomats, adventurers, international traders, educators and linguaphiles will be slashed. Just a dozen of our 42 unis will be recruiting. In 1992 the language was taught on 22 campuses to around 2,000 students.

Philistines might ask - so what?  Indonesian ranks tenth in the world’s top tongues and is little used outside Southeast Asia. Bengali and Arabic are more widespread.  But the nation of 270 million is tipped to become an economic world power if and when Covid-19 is controlled.

Trading across the Arafura Sea will need departments, NGOs and companies staffed by graduates able to understand our potential partners, build lasting networks, develop trust and cement friendships.   

The more farsighted, including the Australia-Indonesia Business Council which is protesting the planned closures, know we need to be Asia literate.

Here’s where it gets weird: The two uni managements’ proposals clash with the government’s higher education funding scheme.  According to ACICIS director Liam Prince, this is designed to draw students into disciplines like Indonesian ‘deemed to be of national priority, but that historically have struggled to attract large numbers.

‘From next year, completing a language major will cost an Australian undergraduate approximately one quarter of the expense of most other arts, humanities, and social sciences majors.’ But the keen kids won’t be enrolling if there are no courses nearby.

 Last century Indonesian was the most popular Asian language in schools.  Now it’s Mandarin and Japanese. The Bali bombs of 2002 and the Jakarta Embassy blast two years later hastened the switch along with travel warnings

So did the public comments of opinion makers like former WA Liberal Premier Colin Barnett. He told AAP during a visit to Jakarta: 'There are very few parts of the world where meetings aren't conducted in English and they are generally not with interpreters.’

Last month former PM John Howard, who holds ambiguous views on the importance of Indonesia, was reported by the AFR as saying we shouldn’t be anxious about the decline as English was ‘the lingua franca of Asia’.

True in the five-star hotels where polis camp and business and government heavyweights wrestle policies. Many ministers and executives are cosmopolitan, though not Joko Widodo.  The president has a poor command of English, like most outside Jakarta’s inner circle, and has little interest in foreign affairs. 

Although learning the world language is compulsory in Indonesian schools, it’s given little time and badly taught.  Teens can name correlative conjunctions but few can communicate.

The Federal Government’s attempts to promote multilingualism parallel its New Colombo Plan ‘rite of passage’ for Gen Z. 

DFAT says the NCP ‘aims to lift knowledge of the Indo-Pacific in Australia by supporting Australian undergraduates to study and undertake internships in the region ... (ensuring the students) have the skills and work-based experiences to contribute to our domestic and the regional economy.’

Before coronavirus crippled travel the scheme was wholly or partly funding about 10,000 students a year heading to 40 countries.

All fine and dandy – but Canberra blew the opportunity to integrate its policies. The Indonesia–Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement came into force in July after ten years haggling.

Widely touted as the dawn of a new bonding, it allows tariff-free entry for our primary produce and Indonesian goods onto our shelves.  As an afterthought a handful of working holiday visas - from 1,000 now to 5,000 in five years.  Last year France, Taiwan and South Korea each sent about 15,000 under-30s.

The IA-CEPA deal could have opened the way for Indonesians to pick fruit for a pittance, pull beers, watch AFL and discover our quirks.  The Jakarta negotiators were keen, ours less so for fear of opening the tabloids’ fearsome floodgates.  Backpacking is officially supposed to ‘promote international understanding by enabling young people to experience the culture of another country.’

The government could have boosted the working holiday visas and scrapped the costly and onerous tourist visa restrictions.  These don’t apply to citizens of nearby nations like Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore. 

Sadly no change, so only one cashed-up and determined Indonesian makes it south for every ten Aussies heading to free-visa Bali.

This isn’t just about uni accounting, economics and tourism.  If we don’t encourage more Indonesians into Australia and help Aussies appreciate their neighbour’s mysterious past, complex politics and different values, there won’t be enough ballast to keep the relationship stable and afloat.

So next time there’s an inter-nation stoush, misunderstandings will multiply and myths oust facts, for there’ll be too few knowledgeable voices to gainsay.

First published in Pearls & Irritations, 7 December 2020:
https://johnmenadue.com/duncan-graham-let-them-all-speak-english/

 

 

 

 

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