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Mayor Ridwan Kamil welcomes Fun Day
Fashion show: Girls compete in a newspaper-based fashion show as part of The Jakarta Postâs Youth Speak Fun Day in the gymnasium of the Indonesia University of Education in Bandung, West Java, on Saturday
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Fashion show: Girls compete in a newspaper-based fashion show as part of The Jakarta Postâs Youth Speak Fun Day in the gymnasium of the Indonesia University of Education in Bandung, West Java, on Saturday. (JP/Arya Dipa) (JP/Arya Dipa)
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span class="caption" style="width: 497px;">Fashion show: Girls compete in a newspaper-based fashion show as part of The Jakarta Post's Youth Speak Fun Day in the gymnasium of the Indonesia University of Education in Bandung, West Java, on Saturday. (JP/Arya Dipa)
One of the country's current rising stars, Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil, officiated the Youth Speak Fun Day on Saturday ' a program aimed at improving English skills for teachers and students through the use of newspapers as a teaching medium and source of teaching materials.
'This program is in line with my vision for making Bandung a livable and lovable city,' Ridwan said from the gymnasium of the Indonesia University of Education.
One way of realizing his vision, he said, was by creating a thematic day.
He said he had declared Thursday 'English-speaking day'. He considered the measure important to increase the index of happiness of his constituency, where 60 percent of people are of productive age.
The mayor said people had been given English courses, while he was seeking private funding for a program to help municipal civil servants to book a minimum TOEFL score of 500.
The event was the capstone of the Newspapers in Education (NIE) partnership program of the Education and Culture Ministry's higher education directorate general and The Jakarta Post Foundation.
The program has offered workshops for senior and vocational senior high school teachers and students on using of newspapers as a teaching medium.
The program has reached 100 schools in 23 cities in nine provinces, including North Sumatra, Riau, Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, Yogyakarta, East Java, Bali and East Kalimantan.
The Jakarta Post Foundation executive director Yulia Herawati said that the foundation would continue to help government efforts to improving national education.
'The program has been in existence since 2008, with the full support of Chevron Indonesia.
Guntur, an English teacher at Mahardika senior vocational high school in West Bandung, West Java, said it was difficult to teach English in the classroom.
'Students are more interested in learning English differently. Teaching English has to be attractive and involve games.'
'[Here] the method is also fun,' Guntur said, referring to activities held during the Youth Speak program such as a Scrabble contest, a speech competition and poster making.
Students joined a series of English competitions including speech making, a spelling bee, writing, news reading, photography, games such as newspaper-based fashion contest, poster production and Scrabble.
Dominique Virgil, from state senior high school SMAN 2 Bogor, expressed excitement for the event, saying that she considered English vital in realizing her goals.
'I want to be a diplomat ' not a diplomat's wife,' Dominique said.
