Malaysians teach Indonesian in Australia

More Australian students are keen to learn the Indonesian language, but many of those who teach Indonesian in Australia are actually Malaysian.

"It’s a pity. How come so few of the teachers are Indonesian? We will look for Indonesian teachers to offer to schools in Australia,” East Java inter-governmental cooperation bureau head Adji Arnowo said on Wednesday as quoted by kompas.com.

He said teachers of Indonesian were in high demand, but he could not blame Australia for the lack of teachers from Indonesia to fill in the gap.

He said that Australians needed to hire anyone who professed Indonesian language skills despite the fact that Indonesian was different from the Malay that was widely spoken in Malaysia.

Adji said the administration was participating in the Australia-Indonesia BRIDGE project to open more opportunities in education.

“There are offers from Melbourne. [They need Indonesian teachers from Indonesia] because existing teachers only speak Malay,” he said. (mtq)