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)