View Single Post
Old March 3rd, 2020 #10
Stewart Meadows
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2018
Posts: 37,511
Default

.
I found this on the well-known question-and-answer website Quora:

Quote:
Is it true that Indonesian is one of the compulsory subjects in Australia?
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-tha...s-in-Australia

Here are some excerpts from the answers:

Quote:
In the primary schools I have come across (or taught in), - at least in Western Australia - generally the second language has been Italian or French. I would imagine that French figures highly on the second language list on the eastern side of the country, too, especially given that Melbourne in particular is home to a lot of French-speaking migrants.

In high school, I have so far come across French, Spanish, Italian, Indonesian, Japanese and Spanish. Doubtless many schools offer different languages, especially as we have a close relationship with China and I feel that Mandarin must certainly be on offer over east, and probably in top independent schools nationally.

Indonesian is certainly widely taught, in public and private schools. In my experience, though, it is not compulsory, other than in high schools who may offer two languages (including Indonesian) and make the study of one of them compulsory in the early grades.
Quote:
No.
It is offered as an elective just like we do with French, German, Mandarin or any other language someone wishes to learn.
Quote:
Not Australia-wide, no.
(...)
The (state) primary school I went to had Japanese, Italian and German as foreign languages, for example. We learned - well, we were taught - Japanese in our first two years, Italia the next two and German the final three. At the (private) high school I went to, it was compulsory to do either German or Japanese for the first year, but you could choose to do neither afterwards. This was in Queensland, for further context.
Quote:
Definitely not. Not even very common voluntarily.
(...)
Australians are showing little interest in studying Indonesian language.
So I guess that means no.