Australia-Indonesia/October 30, 2021/By Mariah Papadopoulos/Source: https://www.abc.net.au/

Tom Mack studies Bahasa Indonesia at high school in Darwin, but he isn’t studying the language with a Bali holiday in mind.

Instead, Tom is intrigued by parallels between Indonesian culture and his own Indigenous Australian heritage.

The Warrumungu Walpiri man, who grew up in Tennant Creek and later in Darwin, said he also enjoyed studying the language because of the Northern Territory’s connections to Indonesia.

Tom is among a shrinking cohort of Australian students choosing to learn Indonesian at high school — year 12 enrolments have declined by 50 per cent in one school generation, according to the Asia Education Foundation (AEF).

That’s why the AEF, at the University of Melbourne, this week renewed calls for a national push to get more high school students learning Indonesian.

The AEF launched a new policy paper ‘Rationale for Indonesian Language and Studies in Australian Education’, which highlights four reasons why studying Indonesian is important in Australian schools: proximity, language literacy, creativity and sustainability.

AEF executive director Hamish Curry said Australians would struggle to navigate their relationship with one of Asia’s key players without Indonesian language and culture skills.