Prague, March 14 (CTK) – The Faculty of Arts of Charles University (FF UK) in Prague will open Indonesian studies as from the next academic year 2016/17 after five years and it will admit about 15 students, daily Lidove noviny (LN) writes yesterday.
Indonesia with 256 million inhabitants, situated on over 17,500 islands, is the fourth most populous country in the world. However, only few Czechs, except for tourists spending holiday in Bali, know it, LN says.
In 2011, 14 people started studying the Indonesian studies at the FF UK, but only eight completed it with a Bc degree.
Now other young people have a chance of majoring in this field. Unlike in the past, they do not have to combine it with another study line. Besides, the Indonesian studies would like to seek the MA accreditation in the future, LN writes.
“Indonesia is a modern prosperous country with an economic potential and it is on the rise,” said Michaela Budiman, head of the Indonesian section at the Southern and Central Asia Institute, who is teaching mainly Bahasa Indonesia, the official language of Indonesia, at the faculty.
The new students will attend language courses thrice a week at least. In addition, they will focus on Indonesian history, literature and culture as well as politics and international relations. They will also partially deal with Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, which Indonesian studies scholar Tomas Petru will teach.
Ethnologist Ondrej Pokorny, the third tutor of this small field, is to get students acquainted with various ethnicities living in Indonesia, with the Javanese being the major group.
“The graduates can take up various jobs. Some of them teach languages or work in tourism,” Budiman said.
Czech firms have expressed interest in Indonesia in the past few years and they would therefore welcome experts well versed in the Indonesian language and culture, LN writes.
It says the Indonesian studies line, based on the tradition of the Czechoslovak Oriental studies, was opened three times from the 1950 to 1970s under the communist regime, and it was revived only after its fall in 1989.
Students could apply for this line in 1992, 1997 and 2011 so far. Now they can file their applications with the FF UK by April 8.
Indonesian scholarships will enable long-time study stays of Czech students in this exotic country, LN adds.
“Indonesia is a dynamically developing country that is frequently visited by tourists, and consequently, Indonesian studies may be very attractive to many young people,” cultural anthropologist Martin Soukup, from Palacky University in Olomouc, north Moravia, told LN.
This university has prepared more pragmatic Indonesian studies focused on tourism, in cooperation with the partner univerity, Universitas Udayana in Bali. Its graduates could work mainly in travel agencies or in catering services, LN says.
Some 20 students have been admitted to this line, chair head Ivona Baresova told LN.
