Why University Students Still Need to Learn Indonesian
Every new semester, the Indonesian Language course becomes a running joke among freshmen: ‘We have studied Indonesian for 12 years, why do we need it again at university?’ This assumption is dangerously misguided. What is taught in higher education is not the basic grammar of secondary school, but Indonesian for academic purposes—the ability to write scholarly works, construct logical arguments, and communicate complex ideas with precision. These are precisely the skills most glaringly absent among Indonesian students today.
Data from various universities show a consistent pattern: students are fluent in conversational Indonesian but struggle immensely when asked to produce academic writing. The most common errors found by thesis supervisors are not related to the substance of the research, but to fundamental writing issues. These include sentences without clear subjects, the erroneous use of ‘dimana’ and ‘yang mana’ as direct translations of English relative pronouns, and paragraphs that lack a single controlling idea. This occurs because secondary school Indonesian lessons focus heavily on literary appreciation and multiple-choice exams rather than the sustained, structured argumentative writing required at the tertiary level.
The ability to write scientifically and the ability to reason are two sides of the same coin. A law student, for instance, must draft a legal opinion or memorandum that identifies legal facts, links them to relevant norms, and draws a logical conclusion. This structure is essentially an argumentative paragraph taught in academic Indonesian courses: a topic sentence, supporting sentences, and a concluding sentence. Without mastery of this structure, even substantively sound legal arguments fail to persuade because they are presented in a convoluted and unsystematic manner. The same principle applies across disciplines, from medical case reports to engineering project proposals and economic policy analyses.
From a regulatory perspective, the status of Indonesian as the state language is enshrined in Article 36 of the 1945 Constitution and reinforced by Law Number 24 of 2009 concerning the National Flag, Language, and Emblem. The law explicitly mandates the use of Indonesian in official state forums, including education. Yet, paradoxically, the higher one climbs the academic ladder, the more one encounters disproportionate mixing of foreign terms in formal scholarly settings, from seminars to thesis defences, even when established equivalents exist in the official dictionary (KBBI) and the Enhanced Indonesian Spelling System (EYD Edition V). This indicates that the problem is not merely a lack of teaching hours, but a weak enforcement of linguistic awareness within academic institutions themselves.
This practice of strengthening the national language in academia is not unique to Indonesia. France, through the Loi Toubon, mandates the use of French in official publications and higher education while still encouraging foreign language mastery as an additional competency. Japan maintains a significant portion of its journals and dissertations in Japanese, particularly in the social sciences and humanities, while remaining globally competitive in research. The lesson is clear: foreign language proficiency and national language reinforcement are not mutually exclusive choices but competencies that must be developed in tandem.
The consequences of weak academic writing skills extend well beyond graduation. Many technically proficient graduates struggle to compose effective business reports, project proposals, or official correspondence. In the realm of scholarly publication, this deficiency contributes to the low acceptance rate of articles by Indonesian academics in reputable journals, as sound research is often communicated ineffectively, whether in Indonesian or in translation.
Therefore, the urgency of teaching Indonesian in higher education demands a reform of methodology, not merely a defence of its credit hours. Instruction must shift from memorising rules to intensive writing practice: drafting opinion articles, critiquing public discourse, composing executive summaries, and editing texts. The goal is to ensure that Indonesian remains not just a language of daily conversation, but a robust instrument of thought, scholarship, and professional communication.