International Journal of Indonesian Studies Volume 1, Issue 3 | Page 180
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INDONESIAN STUDIES
SPRING 2016
state-owned universities and 77 English Departments were private initiatives, especially
those established by Christian-Catholics missionaries and modern Islamic institutions, most
notably by Persyarikatan Muhammadiyah. Muhammadiyah has established one fifth of all
private initiatives: 14 Muhammadiyah universities; Christian-Catholics initiatives have
established around one tenth of all Indonesian private universities. The remaining seventy
percent were initiated by other traditional Islamic institutions such as NU, Hindu-Buddha
religious institutions, and other indigenous nationalist and local institutions. During the
Suharto regime, more than fifty percent of the English Departments that were established
by the government and private initiatives played a seminal role in disseminating the
emergence of teaching English into Indonesian universities.
During the Suharto era and after his fall, the number of private universities has
grown rapidly and it has been necessary to coordinate each university under one Koordinasi
Perguruan Tinggi Swasta/Kopertis (Private High Education Coordinator). The total number of
the English Departments in Indonesia up until 2006 was 121, and the English Departments in
each Kopertis are as follows: Kopertis Wilayah I (Medan, North Sumatera) has around 12
English Departments; Kopertis Wilayah II (Palembang, Sumatera) has 4; Kopertis III (Jakarta)
has 8; Kopertis Wilayah IV (Bandung, West Java) has 18; Kopertis Wilayah V (Yogyakarta) has
14; Kopertis Wilayah VI (Semarang, Central Java) has 11; Kopertis Wilayah VII (Surabaya,
East Java) has 22; Kopertis Wilayah VIII (Denpasar, Bali) has 7; Kopertis Wilayah IX (Makasar,
South Sulawesi) has 15; Kopertis Wilayah X (Padang, West Sumatera) has 4; Kopertis
Wilayah XI (Banjarmasin, Kalimantan) has 3; and, finally, Kopertis Wilayah XII (Ambon,
Maluku) has 3. From the previous distribution of the English departments in each province
in Indonesia, it is clear that the development of teaching English in Java is fostered more
than in the outer Islands. Of 121 English Departments in private universities, more than half
of the numbers are located in Java and less than half of the numbers are in the outer Islands
of Java. The discrepancy of the distribution of the English Departments has hindered the
development of English language especially in the eastern part of Indonesia as it apparently
only has one twelfth of the number of all English Departments. The policy of stressing the
development in Java during the Dutch reign was continually adopted during Suharto regime,
although he had started the program of decentralization in 1992, the progress of the outer
Islands still faces many obstacles. From 1992 onward also marked around half number of
the entire English Departments establishment in universities. The growing number of the
English departments was also supported by the government’s attitude toward English
language education in the post-Suharto era. During Abdurrachman Wahid’s (GU.S Dur)
presidency in 2000, he advocated for the Minister of Education, Yahya A. Muhaimin, being
also a Muhammadiyah elite leader, to issue edicts on the regulation of core curriculum in
the Indonesian universities. The edict stated that English language teaching could become
the part of institutional curriculum of particular faculties outside of the English Department:
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