The homestay craze: Worth the money?
By Rita A. Widiadana and T. Sima Gunawan
Homestay programs have become trendy among Indonesia's school students in big cities. The programs, which are expensive, are also considered profitable, attracting many organizations to this business. The Jakarta Post interviews homestay organizers, parents and students, as well as the staff of a number of foreign embassies in Jakarta.
JAKARTA (JP): As the long-awaited school holiday draws near, students cheer. Starting from the middle of this month, they will have the chance to relax and forget about homework for a while.
Many students are obviously reluctant to touch their text books, saying they want to make the best of their holiday and to have fun.
Studying, however, can be fun.
Every year, thousands of Indonesian students travel overseas during the holidays, not only for sightseeing tours but also to study foreign languages, mainly English, under homestay programs.
They leave in the third or fourth week of June, for about three weeks.
"Basically they study and have fun," Dewi Kurniawan, director of the Dian Educasindo International Education Agency, said.
The students, too, have the opportunity of enjoying the cultural experiences of living abroad, especially because they stay with local families during their stay. In addition, they also learn to live independently.
Dian Educasindo started business in 1987, organizing homestay programs for students who want to study English in the United States. The English course is held in cooperation with the International English Institute in Fresno, California. Responding to the growing demand, the business expanded, arranging the same program to Australia, Singapore, New Zealand and Canada.
"In Singapore, students can study either English or Chinese," Dewi said.
Starting this year, students, who want to study Chinese, also have the choice of going to China because Dian Educasindo has set up a cooperation with a linguistic institute in Shezhen, about a three-hour drive from Beijing.
The fee starts from US$1,995 for a three-week homestay program in Singapore or Perth. Those going to China will pay $2,195; to Brisbane, $2,395; to Sydney or Auckland, $2,495; to California, Canada or Britain, $3,295.
Generally, the students take the language course from Monday to Friday, from 9 a.m. to noon. After class, they tour the city and its surrounding areas, play sports or other leisure activities. During the weekends they have more time to enjoy themselves.
Last year, Dian Educasindo sent 298 students overseas. Groups consisted of between 25 to 50 students each. Most students joining the homestay program were between 12 and 16 years old. But there were also some elementary school students, who were only nine years old.
Puri Overseas Study offers homestay programs to study in Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, United States and Britain.
Puri is sending students to the University of California in Berkeley and to St. Milner College in Perth, but it may have to cancel the trips to some places due to lack of participants.
"We will send them anyway if they do not mind going by themselves, without a tour leader," Tri Nugroho, a consultant for the education agency, said.
The longest running organizer is probably the Education First (EF) International Language School. Ungki Aldar, an EF program coordinator, said that the program was first offered in 1965 for Swedish students who wanted to study English and have fun during the summer holiday.
The international school started recruiting Indonesian students in 1986. Today, its students come from 30 countries throughout the world.
"We send an average of 500 students to the U.S., Britain and Australia. Our target for this year is 700 students," Aldar said.
The students are divided into two age groups: 12-14 years and 15-18 years.
Education First offers three places in the U.S.: New York, Chicago and California. In Australia, the students study English in Sydney only, but those going to Britain also have three choices: Cambridge, Oxford or Torquay.
Students who are set to study in Britain are offered a tour package to see other parts of Europe. Dian Educasindo arranges a trip to Paris, but students who go to Britain under EF's arrangements can go not only to Paris but to Geneva, Monaco and Nice, or Brussels and Amsterdam as well--with an additional fee of $700.
EF offers a three-week homestay program to study in Sydney for $2,750, while the fee to study in the United States or Britain is almost $4,000.
Aldar said that starting this year, in response to the demands of some students, they will have the chance to live in a dormitory of the Long Beach California State University.
Homestay programs have not only attracted education consultants and travel agencies but have also encouraged other institutions to plunge into this educative and prolific business.
They include a number of English courses and teenage magazines.
Yayasan LIA, or the LIA Foundation, has been organizing its homestay programs since l990. Henny Ardi, deputy director of the foundation's Overseas Training and Travel, explained that LIA's homestay programs were first intended for its own students.
"But as the programs are developing, LIA also accepts junior high school and high school students at the age of between 12 and 19 years old from Jakarta and other cities," Henny added.
LIA sets the destination for its homestay programs to only one place in the United States. "We are seeking the opportunity to send our students to other English-speaking countries. We have already received several proposals from English institutions in Singapore and New Zealand," she said.
For the last three years, LIA has been collaborating with the University of California in Riverside, in organizing a four-week intensive English course for teenage students from all over the world.
The cost, $3,550 for LIA students and $3,650 for other students, includes airplane tickets, intensive English course, daily living costs and a holiday tour to seven cities in the United States.
The students will be staying with their American foster parents for four weeks. "They will benefit from this cross- cultural experience with their new families because they can learn about the western culture. Besides, the students are also forced to speak English, on all occasions," Henny said.
"Participants are obliged to fill in a form stating his/her personality and their requirements for the selection of their foster parents," Henny noted.
Aisah Sulaeman, a LIA teacher who acted as a chaperon in l993, explained that this rule is applied to avoid complaints, from both the students and their foster parents. Three years ago, a student lodged a complaint, stating that he refused to stay with his foster parents because they had a puppy. In the form he had written that he did not want to stay with a family which had pets.
She said that LIA's homestay programs place more stress on quality rather that quantity. So far, the foundation limits the number of participants to no more than 20 students every year.
"Of course, we also offer various fun and entertaining activities because the program takes place during school holidays. But we do focus the programs on education," she added.
Hai, a popular Indonesian teenage magazine, has been organizing homestay programs since l990.
"The combination of fun and study is our motto," Dharmawan, an editor of the magazine, explained.
In organizing the programs, Hai set up cooperations with a number of travel agencies. The destinations of the programs vary from year to year. In l990, for example, Hai jointly organized homestay programs with Iwata Nusantara Tours and Travel for high school students. The program's participants were enrolled in the International English Institute in Fresno, Los Angeles, the United States.
Last year, the magazine collaborated with the Hard Rock Cafe in organizing a homestay program to Brisbane in Queensland, Australia. About 43 high school students took part in a Homestay English course at the Hilton Language Center in Brisbane from June 19 to July 9 last year. This year's program will take place in New Zealand.
"The number of homestay participants increases every year, meaning that the demand for such programs are rising among local students," Dharmawan added.
Teenage idols
To draw as many participants as possible, and to make the programs more interesting, Hai also invites teenage idols, such as teenage movie stars or musicians. Last year, Hai asked members of the Java Jive band to act as chaperons.
Mode, another teenage magazine, frequently involves popular teenage figures in its homestay programs.
Since starting the business in l989, Mode's homestay programs have been very popular among local teenagers. "We always invite winners of the magazine's Cover Boy and Cover Girl contests to act as chaperons. As a result many students want to take part in the program because they are eager to spend their holidays with their idols," an editor of the magazine said.
This year, the magazine is organizing homestay programs to the United States and Britain. It is setting up a cooperation with two travel agencies, Niyasa Travel Agency and Interland Travel Agency.
Financially, the magazine gains no profit from the program.
"We act as a coordinator and send our editorial staff as chaperons," the editor said.
However, she admitted that they face little difficulty in marketing the program because many parties also organize similar packages.
"We have to be very innovative in creating unique and interesting packages, otherwise we cannot compete with other organizers," she maintained.
Embassy
However, Andri Nursafitri, education marketing executive of the New Zealand Embassy, commented that people should be careful in selecting homestay programs offered by various institutions.
A good homestay program should offer precise schedules from the beginning to the end of the program, Andri said.
People, he added, should also recognize the accreditation of each institution mentioned in any homestay program. Many organizations provide misleading information to candidates in order to gain as much profit as possible.
"The embassy is willing to inform the public about the accreditation of education institutions in New Zealand," Andri said.
The New Zealand embassy acts as a mediator between New Zealand institutions and their local counterparts in Indonesia.
Andri added that homestay programs in New Zealand started in l992. A large number of education institutions in that country have been actively promoting their homestay programs for Indonesian students. They set up joint ventures with local education consultants, institutions or foundations.
Citing an example, he said the Trisakti University established a cooperation with the ILA South Pacific English School in Christchurch in l992 for homestay programs.
The Permai Foundation has a cooperation with the Christchurch Polytechnic School. Other education consultants and travel agencies such as Puri Tour and Dian Educasindo have also set up joint agreements with several institutions in New Zealand.
A number of financial institutions such as Thomas Cook and Bank Niaga have jointly organized homestay programs for Indonesian students at the Dominion English Language School in Auckland, New Zealand.
"The embassy will keep monitoring all agencies involved in homestay programs. We will not hesitate to warn these agencies if they are found disseminating the wrong information to Indonesian students," Andri said.
Ardythe Huberfenwick of the American-Indonesian Exchange Foundation, admitted that it is very difficult to monitor the homestay programs organized by American and Indonesian organizations.
"We have thousands of educational institutions. It is very hard for us to provide information on the accreditation of each institution," Ardythe, the foundation's coordinator for Education Advising Service of the American Embassy, said.
Indonesian students, she said, should be very careful when joining homestay programs.
"The offered programs are not always appropriate and foster parents are not always nice people," Ardythe warned.