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RI suffers setback in English proficiency
Indonesiaâs English proficiency level has not improved enough for the countryâs population to compete with others in ASEAN as the region prepares itself for the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), which is expected to kick off at the end of this year
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ndonesia's English proficiency level has not improved enough for the country's population to compete with others in ASEAN as the region prepares itself for the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), which is expected to kick off at the end of this year.
According to the 2015 Education First (EF) English Proficiency Index (EPI), Indonesia ranks fourth, down one spot from last year, as Vietnam managed to outpace Indonesia in terms of English proficiency level growth.
'Right now the position of Indonesia in the EPI suffers from a decline in comparison to other countries. This could affect the investment climate in Indonesia. Therefore, we need to push for the use of English in offices and institutions,' the Culture and Education Ministry's training and courses development director, Yusuf Muhyiddin, said during the launch of the fifth EPI in Central Jakarta on Thursday.
The EPI is the world's largest ranking of countries by English skills. The report identifies global and regional English language learning trends and analyzes the relationship between countries' English proficiency and their economic competitiveness. This year's EPI report profiles all 70 ranked countries, using test data from 910,000 adult English language learners.
Indonesia's score on the worldwide ranking was 52.91, only a negligible increase from 52.74 in 2014, placing it in the 32nd position, out of 70 countries. Last year, Indonesia ranked 28th out of 63 countries.
In this year's survey, Indonesia ranked below Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam in the Southeast Asia region, and only scored higher than Thailand and Cambodia.
'Indonesia scored a minimal increase of 0.17. Essentially, its EPI is the same with that of last year,' EF educational research and development director Steve Crooks said on Thursday.
European countries, particularly the Nordic nations, continue to outperform other regions, claiming the top 10 slots in the ranking. The Middle East and North Africa are the only regions to experience declining English proficiency.
With the growth of Indonesia's English proficiency level progressing very slowly, University of Indonesia's international law expert Hikmahanto Juwana warned that the country could face problems once the AEC was in place.
The AEC was born out of the ASEAN Vision 2020, adopted on the 30th anniversary of ASEAN in 1997. The goal is to produce one market and production base by 2020 with free movement of services, goods, capital, investments and skilled labor.
'In the context of the AEC, we're worried that if Indonesia's human resources are not being trained to be fluent in English, then it will be hard for them to compete with those coming from other countries. And we're not talking about Indonesians looking for work in other countries,' he said on Thursday. 'English language is a tool. We want our people to use this tool when they're looking for jobs overseas.'
Yusuf attributed the lack of growth of Indonesia's English proficiency to the country's national curriculum.
'In our education system, English language had been allocated a relatively small portion of time because there are other subjects deemed to be more important,' he said.
Furthermore, Indonesian teachers usually focus more on grammar than the practical use of the language in conversation,' explained Yusuf.
'Even after studying English language from secondary to senior high school, most of us could not speak English. We are studying grammar but not speaking. Maybe that's our weakness,' he said.
