International Journal of Indonesian Studies Volume 1, Issue 3 | Page 161

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INDONESIAN STUDIES
SPRING 2016
Liberalism is understood to be the protection of European landowners at the
expense of the native population, and that the interests of the latter are completely
disregarded to give a few speculators and adventures their chance to succeed in
their schemes, then I must declare myself to be an ultra anti-Liberal.47
Van de Capellen was one governor-general who understood the principle of the need for a
better education system for Indonesians. He saw that Dutch colonial policy did its utmost to
improve the material supply from the Indonesians in international trade, but continued to
underestimate the people’s educational and political needs. The urge to educate the empire
was at its height. For this purpose, they founded a new department of government, that of
“Agriculture, Arts and Education”. Unfortunately, this plan was executed only to address the
elite in the East Indies and to fulfil the betterment of the agricultural system so it could be
exploited further by its colonial ruler. With the arrival of a western education system, there
appeared a discrepancy with the existing local education, those which were in the hands of
the Moslem religious teachers and Hindu-Buddha religious teachers. The two later
education systems were mostly confined to religious contents and heavily imposed the
teaching of Arabic and Sanskrit. Before the execution of the Ethical Policy, a western-style
education for the indigenous population of the East Indies was primarily left to the Christian
missions (at first mainly in the Moluccas and Timor, and from 1830s also in Minahasa, North
Sulawesi); the non-Christian populations were completely ignored.
Foreign languages introduced in the Dutch colonial education system and private
missionary initiatives were Dutch and other European languages such as German, French
and English. The four European languages, however, became a contested struggle within the
Dutch umbrella of education; what happened in Europe influenced the way the Dutch
imposed its foreign language policy. As the previous three main religions taught their
language through the padepokan and pesantren, the Dutch language policy was applied
through its church services and colonial government schools. Dutch and the other European
languages were only introduced to the elite of the noble ranks (raja and bangsawan), the
Chinese people and indigenous people who had converted to Christianity. 48 Western
education was formally introduced to the indigenous Indonesia at the beginning of the
twentieth century with the introduction of the Dutch Ethical Policy which was urged by
many Dutch liberal movements. Although the Ethical Policy had its root in a humanitarian
concern, this rationale was superseded by its economic advantage. During the liberal period
(1870-1900) Dutch industry began to see Indonesia as a potential market. This potential
market needed to raise its life standard as there was an urgent need for cheap Indonesian
labour in the modern market. The former slaves’ position in eighteenth century Europe was
simply re-stamped as another word, “labours”, a concept which was alien to the indigenous.

47
48

Vlekke, Op. Cit., 275.
Groeneboer, Op. Cit., 27.

161 | P a g e