International Journal of Indonesian Studies Volume 1, Issue 3 | Page 163

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INDONESIAN STUDIES
SPRING 2016
replaced with English. This signalled the strong hold of Dutch, English and the German
languages. The German language was then also banned shortly after Germany’s occupation
of the Netherlands. The teaching of Dutch and English became prominent by the end of
World War II. The teaching of Dutch had, however, been banished by two prominent factors,
namely the occupation of Japan in Indonesia and the rejection by Indonesian independence
fighters, nationalists, of the colonizers’ language. 1945 signalled the victory of English as the
only foreign language accepted in the indigenous schools. At that time the teaching of
English was considered successful due to the small number of the students, as it apparently
only addressed the noble ranks and those indigenous people who converted to Christianity.
The introduction of the four European languages to the indigenous of Indonesia
actually gained much large scale support whether in the Netherlands or its Empire. This
policy, however, was not accompanied by active steps from the colonial government. In the
1930 census, the literacy rate for adult Indonesians throughout the archipelago was only 7.4
percent. This makes for a poor comparison with the most ambitious public education
programme in a colonised country, that of the United States in the Philippines, where, by
1939, over a quarter of the population could speak English.53 In the former Southeast Asian
British colonies of Malaysia and Singapore, no less than one-third of the total population of
23 million now speak English.54 Although the previous data only showed the literacy rate
and language policy, they also reflect how much emphasis was placed on education in
general in the colonial empire. The British India in the Malaysia and Singapore, the U.S in the
Philippines, and the French in Indochina had spent two to three times more than the Dutch
in Indonesia on Education.55 In spite of its material gain exploited from Indonesia, the Dutch
never had a serious commitment to the welfare of the Indigenous East Indies as the public
education policies in the East Indies merely addressed the indigenous elite. The result was
that UNESCO found in 1947 an illiteracy rate of 88 percent in British India, 40 percent in the
Philippines, 80 percent in Vietnam, and a startling 95 percent in the Dutch East Indies
(Indonesia). The possible reason was that the Dutch colonisers’ pragmatic language policy
was always dictated by practical, economic and financial considerations. This colonial
attitude demonstrated vividly that, in practice, welfare was subordinated to a balanced
budget.
The dawn of English Language Teaching (ELT) & the role of America in the new Indonesia
(1942-1965)
With the turmoil of World War II, the Japanese with the support from its Central Axis
(Germany, Italy, Turkey, and Japan) ousted the Dutch in 1942. The Governor-general of the
East Indies sought help from its Allies. During the Second World War, many criticisms were
directed to the Dutch language policy by Indonesia’s Allies — England, Australia, and
53

Ricklefs, Op. Cit., 203.
Crystal, English as a Global Language, 57-60.
55
Nieuwenhuis 1923a: 202; Kelly 1978: 102, 119-20 quoted by Groeneboer, Op. Cit., 11.
54

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