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No language requirement for foreign workers, State Palace says
Presidential spokesman Johan Budi Sapto Prabowo has said that there is no language requirement for foreign workers as Presidential Regulation (Perpres) No. 20/2018 on foreign workers only requires that employees provide Indonesian language training.
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A view of Bundaran Hotel Indonesia, Central Jakarta. (Shutterstock/Andreas H)
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residential spokesman Johan Budi Sapto Prabowo has said that there is no language requirement for foreign workers as Presidential Regulation (Perpres) No. 20/2018 on foreign workers only requires employers to provide their foreign workers with Indonesian language training.
"There is no language requirement for employees. The truth is that the regulation requires employers to provide language training [to their foreign workers],” he said in Jakarta on Tuesday, days after the publication of an article in The New York Times titled “Indonesia’s Order to Foreign Workers: Learn the Language.”
Johan, referring to Article 26 of the regulation, stated that, “Employers are required to facilitate their foreign workers to have Indonesian language education and training.”
Meanwhile, an expert staff member at the Vice Presidential Office, Wijayanto Samirin, explained that the government was currently drafting a manpower ministerial regulation on foreign workers that would further detail the requirements in language training.
“It is not true that foreigners have to be able to speak the Indonesian language before being employed in Indonesia. The process of working and learning the language could occur at the same time,” Wijayanto told The Jakarta Post.
Meanwhile, in early May, Manpower Ministry legal bureau head Budiman said that under the ministerial regulation, which was being drafted, the requirement to speak Indonesian would apply to foreign workers staying in the country for long periods of time.
“Under the prepared regulation, only those who stay for six months or longer are required to be able to speak the Indonesian language,” Budiman said as reported by kompas.com. (bbn)
