However, after 15 years, and promises it would be mainstreamed, Australian students still learn very little about Asia. For example, teaching the Indonesian language is no longer a priority for many Australian schools. This decline extends beyond high school.

According to the Asian Studies Association of Australia (2023), there has been a steady fall in Indonesian-language enrolments across all Australian universities as well.

Recently, I discussed the Indonesian-language curriculum with teachers in several Australian cities. They confirmed that students’ interest in Indonesian had decreased.

However, the problem does not stop there. Many schools have discontinued their Indonesian-language classes altogether due to a shortage of trained teachers. This means that even those students who are interested in Indonesian cannot be accommodated.

This situation is difficult to understand because the Australian government says it is re-promoting Asia literacy. What is clear, however, is that the decline of Indonesian-language programs in Australian schools and universities will have a negative impact on Australia’s engagement with and, understanding of, Indonesia.

My question is how can we again make Indonesian-language studies popular in Australia?

Everyone needs a good reason to learn something. This is especially true of languages. One important reason to learn the Indonesian language is that we are living in what is considered “the Asian Century”. According to the Lowy Institute Asia Power Index (2023), by 2030 Indonesia will be the fifth-largest economy in the world. The watershed Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IA-CEPA) was signed only a few years ago to help bilateral trade flourish, and last year Australia’s investment in Indonesia increased by a staggering 270 percent. Currently, more than 65 percent of Australia’s total trade with the world is with Asia, with Indonesia being Australia’s immediate neighbor. This constitutes a powerful economic motivator for Australians to learn Indonesia’s national language.

However, majoring in the Indonesian language is also the best way to a better understanding of Indonesia’s complex and diverse cultures. According to Western Sydney University’s Rob Goodfellow, author of Indonesian Business Culture and the Indonesian-language textbook Menembus Pasar Cina (Entering the Chinese Market), “Language is a proven pathway to building sustainable interpersonal and, in turn, sound business relations”.

After all, Indonesian is spoken by some 280 million Indonesians. And, if the closely related Malay language is included, then there are an additional 40 million Malaysians, Singaporeans and Bruneians that can be added to this list.

Unfortunately, according to Melbourne University’s Tim Lindsey, “Asian language studies in Australia have suffered from policy discontinuity and fragility since 2009”. Indeed, as reported in the Asia Education Foundation 2023-2024 pre-budget submission, there has in fact been no government funding for the National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Program (NALSSP) (Indonesian included), or anything like it, since 2012. According to Lindsey, who was a member of the NALSSP reference group, immediate and sustained Australian government support for strengthening Asia literacy is urgently needed. “The current lack of funding is contrary to the spirit of the White Paper, ‘Australia in the Asian Century’, published in 2012. This said that Australia, as a nation, needed to broaden and deepen understanding of Asian cultures and languages, and to become more Asia literate”.

“Why has Asia literacy been forgotten at a time when Asia has become so obviously vital for our future? It just doesn’t make sense?”

However, there is still hope. There was, thankfully, fresh leadership commitment to strengthen the study of the Indonesian language in Australia in the June 6, 2022 Joint Statement of the President of Indonesia and the Prime Minister of Australia. This pledge was strengthened in Canberra as recently as Feb. 9, 2023 by Indonesian Foreign Minister, Retno LP Marsudi and her Australian counterpart Penny Wong.

With this leadership commitment in place, the decline in Indonesian studies in Australia can now be addressed from a simple supply and demand perspective. The demand for Indonesian-language training, for example, is strongly influenced by students' perception of how important Indonesia is for their future.

To build such a perception, the Indonesian government, through its representatives in Australia, has invested in programs such as “Indonesia Goes to School” where principals, teachers and students are invited to take part in specially designed cultural workshops.

Meanwhile, to fill the shortage of qualified teachers, the Indonesian government is funding teachers’ assistants to support Indonesian-language educators in Australian schools. For example, right now, the Education, Culture, Research and Technology Ministry through Badan Bahasa is sending Indonesian-language assistants to several schools in Victoria and Flinders. A similar process is underway in Western Australia, Canberra and Northern Territory.

What is more, the Indonesian government also provides Dharmasiswa scholarships for Australian students who want to study Indonesian language and culture for one year and “Beasiswa Seni dan Budaya Indonesia” for short courses on Indonesian arts and culture.

This is a great start from the Indonesian side. But what is now needed according to those Australians like Goodfellow and Lindsey, who themselves have benefited from Indonesian-language training, is no less than massive Australian government funding to ensure intergenerational continuity. According to Lindsey, “Labor governments have done this in the past. The current one should do it now”.

Australia and Indonesia are connected by history and geography. Now we need to be further connected, as good neighbors should be, by language and culture.

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The writer is the education attaché at the Indonesian Embassy in Canberra and a professor at the Bogor Agricultural (IPB) University. The opinions expressed are his own.