Teaching Mandarin okay for tourism

Teaching Mandarin okay for tourism

JAKARTA (JP): The government's decision last year to allow language schools to teach Mandarin was mainly taken to boost tourism, says a senior official of the Ministry of Education and Culture.

Director general for extra-curricular activities and sports Soedijarto, who oversees language schools in the country, said that licenses to teach Mandarin are given under strict State Intelligence Coordinating Board conditions.

The courses, for example, cannot teach about Chinese culture, politics or literature, Soedijarto said.

The government last year lifted the ban on Chinese language courses that had been enforced since the late 1960s. The ban was imposed after Indonesia broke diplomatic ties with China, whom it accused of complicity in the 1965 abortive coup against President Sukarno.

The only two universities in the country allowed to have Chinese language courses, under strict government supervision, are the University of Indonesia (UI) and the University of Dharma Persada.

But with tourists from Hong Kong and Taiwan now accounting for more of the foreign tourists visiting Indonesian shores, the government has eased the restrictions.

Soedijarto said that he has already received 10 applications requesting licenses to offer Chinese language courses.

Sapardi Djoko Damono, the dean of UI's School of Letters, said the past restrictions are unnecessary because the schools chiefly teach languages for practical purposes.

But, he added, one cannot teach a foreign language without teaching about the customs of their users. "Language is the crystallization of a culture."

Gondomono, the head of the East Asia Division of UI's School of Letters, said that the language schools which have started Mandarin classes had yet to register with the university. (31)