Teman-teman yang baik
Info below is forwarded from the wa-indon
list.
Leonie Wittman
Senior Curriculum Adviser
Languages Special Projects
Languages Unit
Curriculum K-12 Directorate
NSW Department of Education & Training
3a Smalls Rd
Ryde NSW 2112
Tel: 61 2 9886 7681
Fax: 61 2 9886 7160
Email: leonie.wittman@det.nsw.edu.au
From:
wa-indon-bounces@central.murdoch.edu.au [mailto:wa-indon-bounces@central.murdoch.edu.au]
On Behalf Of David T. Hill
Sent: Friday, 21 October 2005 6:31
PM
To:
wa-indon@central.murdoch.edu.au
Subject: [Wa-indon] Jakarta Post
on Oz Fed Parlt report response
Wa-indon members might be interested in this article by Duncan Graham in
today's JAKARTA POST
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailworld.asp?fileid=20051021.I01&irec=0
.........................
The Jakarta
Post, 21 October 2005
Australia-Indonesia relations lack leadership
Duncan Graham, Contributor, Surabaya
The Australian government has failed to provide serious leadership in improving
relations with Indonesia,
according to Dr. David Hill, professor of Southeast Asian Studies at Western Australia's Murdoch University.
"It is disappointing that many key recommendations made by a Federal
Parliamentary committee -- and central to Australia's future capacity to engage
with Indonesia in a mutually beneficial and productive way -- have not been
taken up with sufficient vigor or commitment," he told The Jakarta Post.
Prof. Hill was commenting on the Australian government's response to a major
report on Australian-Indonesian relations.
The report was written by the foreign affairs sub-committee of the Australian
Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade.
The 275-page report with 28 recommendations was published in May last year, but
the government's response has only just been released.
The report, titled Near Neighbours - Good
Neighbours, took 21 months to produce. Work started following the
2002 Bali bombings.
The 25-member sub-committee met in Australia
and Jakarta. It
included members of parliament from all major Australian political parties. The
current Opposition Leader Kim Beazley was a member.
Input was given by 60 organizations and 124 submissions were made. Almost 40
percent concerned education.
In the report sub-committee chairman David Jull described the
Indonesian-Australian relationship as "complex".
"Being good neighbours is an art requiring a delicate balancing of
distance and closeness," he said. "A distance that is respectful of
difference and sovereignty -- a closeness that guarantees a helping hand in
time of need."
Although the report drew a lukewarm response in Australia,
most academics involved in Asian Studies welcomed recommendations that urged
the government to spend more on education to boost understanding of Indonesia.
In its reply to the report, the government said funding for education and
training assistance to Indonesia
had increased. Scholarships were available and a new program had been
introduced to lift English language training in Islamic boarding schools,
mainly in East Java.
However Professor Hill slammed the government's negative response to a
recommendation to restore the National Asian Languages and Studies in
Australian Schools program.
This started in 1995 and was designed to make Australians more Asia-literate.
Teachers claimed the program helped revive interest in Indonesian, but the
Federal government withdrew support in 2002. Enrollments in higher level
learning of Indonesian then slumped.
"While the uptake of Indonesian language languishes around Australia the
government's response is simply to declare that it is doing what it can --
which is clearly not enough," Prof. Hill said.
"Indonesian needs to be regarded as a strategic priority and to be
supported financially at all levels of education from primary to tertiary.
"Yet the level of funding is less than A$1.50 (Rp 11,000) a year per head
of population which is a paltry investment in a country's linguistic
competence. It's less than the cost of one cup of coffee.
"Instead of providing serious leadership, the government has chosen to
deflect responsibility back to the various states."
Responding to another recommendation that the government lift its aid to Indonesia, the government said that before last
December's tsunami Australia
had already increased its annual aid budget to A$160.8 million (Rp 120,75
million).
After the Indian Ocean disaster and a commitment of A$1 billion (Rp 7,5
billion) over five years, Australia
is now the third ranked bilateral donor to Indonesia
behind Japan and Germany.
Another recommendation for action to promote understanding of Islam in Australia drew this response: "The
government is currently looking at ways to address the perceptions in some
areas of the community that Australia
is not racially or religiously tolerant".
== ibox
For more of the report from the Australian
Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade, go
to: http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/jfadt/index.htm
....................................................................................
Professor David T. Hill
Chair of Southeast Asian Studies
School of Social Sciences and Humanities
(Education & Humanities
Building, Room 2.11)
Division of Arts
MURDOCH UNIVERSITY WA 6150
AUSTRALIA
tel: (+61-8) 9360 2412 (direct); 9360 2504 (School office)
fax: (+61-8) 9360 6575
