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'Embarrassing': Murdoch Uni urged to reconsider ditching Indonesian studies

Source
Sydney Morning Herald - December 4, 2020

Aja Styles – The Australian Indonesian Business Council has written to Murdoch University's vice chancellor calling for the reconsideration of a decision to axe its Indonesian language studies, as the course was "crucial to the future prosperity of Western Australia".

This week the university proposed ending Indonesian, along with traditional science, technology, engineering and mathematics degrees, and radio, theatre and drama studies.

AIBC national president Phil Turtle wrote asking Professor Eeva Leinonen to continue the Indonesian program given "the suite of 'Asian capabilities' that are required for our emerging leaders to possess is underpinned by language and cultural proficiency".

But it is understood that Professor Leinonen has left Australia to be with her daughter in London for Christmas.

Murdoch emeritus professor in South East Asian studies, David Hill, said 7 per cent of Australia's university enrolments in Indonesian last year were at Murdoch.

If the course was cancelled, the University of WA would be the last tertiary institute to teach Indonesian in the state.

"Curtin closed its program a decade or so ago, so we would be greatly disadvantaged if we didn't draw the line here and now and ensure those programs that exist in Indonesian studies they were appropriately secure and well supported at all levels, within the university, within the state and within the Commonwealth," Professor Hill said.

Murdoch helped found the Australian Consortium for 'In-Country' Indonesian Studies, which, prior to COVID-19, had been increasing by about 40 per cent a year to 1100 undergraduates studying in Indonesia last year, up from 400 in 2012.

ACICIS consortium director Liam Prince, who is based at UWA, said it would be a challenge even for UWA to recruit students unless there was better funding support.

"I suspect if UWA was to put up its hand and say that it was going to close its Indonesian program it would be an extremely embarrassing situation where we would have no universities in WA teaching Indonesian," he said.

"And I think that would be embarrassing to the state government and embarrassing to the university sector as a whole."

WA's Minister for Asian Engagement Peter Tinley refused to comment.

'Wholesale collapse of Indonesian'

For 20 years, Murdoch was one of Australia's leading research centres in Asian studies, particularly Indonesian studies, which attracted students from around the world.

But student numbers in Indonesian have been in decline nationally for the past 30 years, with 22 universities once teaching a cohort of 2000 students nationally, dropping to 800 students across 14 universities in 2019.

And while 250 WA primary schools continue to teach Bahasa Indonesia to more than 11,000 students, by year 10 those enrolments drop 90 per cent, with practically no students choosing it at university level.

Ross Taylor from WA's Indonesia Institute said he was not surprised, given how little Australia had engaged Indonesia despite it having 90 million people under the age 30 who were "aspirational and getting well educated".

He said of the 9.2 million Indonesians who travelled overseas, fewer than 1.5 per cent came to Australia, which was a wasted opportunity for tourism and hospitality.

"Here in WA we attracted 11,000 Indonesian holidaymakers for the whole year, where we got 100,000 from Singapore – like, what are we doing?" he said.

Academics and those in industry and business agree Indonesia is vastly under-utilised.

A PricewaterhouseCoopers Asia Taskforce Discussion paper released in September said there was cause for concern over the consistent declines in language learning and loss of deeper study expertise, as well as Australians' generally poor understanding of the Asian region.

Indonesia is forecast to become the world's fourth-biggest economy by 2050 and, the paper warned, "policy-makers and business leaders are right to be concerned".

"The skills required are not only in short supply, they are at serious risk of being overlooked and undervalued just at the time they are needed most," it said.

Murdoch is the second university after La Trobe to announce its intention to axe Indonesian, with Asian studies academics predicting a further five universities will do the same in coming months.

It is understood the Indonesian ambassador has written to La Trobe voicing his disappointment, with Murdoch likely to follow.

Murdoch will need to seek the approval of federal Education Minister Dan Tehan to axe Indonesian, but Professor Hill holds little hope of intervention, since consecutive ministers have given their approval to close 10 Indonesian language programs over the past several decades.

Mr Tehan said his government encouraged Australians to learn about other cultures and noted students who studied a language could see the cost of their degree reduced through government reforms.

But he wouldn't go as far as preventing Murdoch from ceasing its offering, saying: "Universities are autonomous institutions that are responsible for their decisions."

Ed Aspinall, an Australian National University professor at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, said COVID-19 had simply accelerated the squeeze Indonesian studies had faced from years of neglect by the federal government and universities' shift to a market-based system.

"It really is very desperate and we're facing the pretty much wholesale collapse of Indonesian language teaching at Australian universities," he said.

Source: https://www.smh.com.au/national/western-australia/embarrassing-murdoch-uni-urged-to-reconsider-ditching-indonesian-studies-20201203-p56khp.htm

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