After weeks of speculation, the Education Ministry has announced that English language lessons will not be scrapped from the nation's elementary school curriculum after all.

Musliar Kasim, the deputy minister, had previously said that the ministry was trying to simplify the existing elementary school curriculum, which had been criticized as overwhelming students with too many subjects.

Musliar said under the new curriculum there would only be six subjects: religion, nationalism, Indonesian language, math, art and sport. On Tuesday, however, he said that ministry would include English, but only as an elective subject or integrated into the six mandatory subjects.

"We never wanted to scrap [English from elementary school]. From early on there was never any mandatory English class [at elementary level]," he said. "All this time, English at the elementary school level has been included into local knowledge [elective] subjects, not mandatory subjects."

Musliar said it would be unfair to children in remote areas if the government made English a mandatory subject, arguing that Indonesia had a limited number of teachers qualified to teach the language. "If English is made a mandatory subject but the teachers are incompetent [to teach it], the impact on the children would be bad," he said.

Musliar added that elementary schools across the country could still teach English as electives or additional subjects as long as the lesson was accepted by children.

It is still unclear whether the government will make science and social studies electives or proceed with plans to scrap those subjects entirely.

Musliar previously said the government had decided to make the elementary school curriculum simpler by scrapping several subjects like science and social studies, which he said would be integrated into Indonesian language classes.

"A national figure told me that his grandchild, who is an elementary school student, has to carry books in a suitcase because there are so many subjects they have to study," he said last month.

"Many students, when their teacher is absent from school, feel glad because they're free from studying. In the future, the system should be overturned. They should be glad to study."

The decision sparked controversy and polarized the nation, with proponents of the plan arguing that their children had long felt overburdened by the curriculum.

But opponents of the plan argued that it would make Indonesians less competitive in the globalized market and discriminate against those who could not afford to send their children to private English and science tuition centers.

Retno Listyarti, secretary general of the Indonesian Teachers Union Federation (FSGI), said there was no need to force Indonesian children to speak a second language at such an early age.

"Elementary school students are still at a basic stage [of learning]. Just provide them with a range of vocabulary," she said.