Jakarta – The Education and Teachers Association (P2G) has criticised President Prabowo Subianto's instruction for all schools in Indonesia to start requiring French as a subject.
P2G Coordinator Satriwan Salim believes that the president's instructions were unclear and only seemed like diplomatic pleasantries, because the desire was conveyed without a clear grounds or reason.
Moreover, a year earlier, the president also asked schools to start teaching Portuguese language as a subject. It is quite impossible that in the future the president will also suddenly ask for Japanese language to be taught after meeting the Japanese Prime Minister.
"Later, if President Prabowo has another bilateral meeting with Japan, he will include Japanese in the curriculum. When he visits China, he will make Mandarin a mandatory lesson, likewise after returning from the Netherlands, then the president will make Dutch language lessons mandatory", said Salim in a statement on Friday May 29.
"Of course managing education cannot be capricious like this", he added.
Salim believes that the government cannot make education policies from the 2025-2029 National Medium Term Development Plan (RPJMN). Meaning learning French and Portuguese is not a priority referring to the RPJMN that has already been set out.
Second, requiring French language lessons at all school levels, meaning starting from elementary school (SD), primary school (SMP), high school (SMA) and its equivalent, will only increase the curriculum burden for students. Because, said Salim, the national curriculum structure is already relatively dense in subjects.
"Assuming that one school has two French and Portuguese teachers, out of a total of around 240 thousand SD-SMA or equivalent schools, 480 thousand foreign language teachers would be needed", he said.
According to Salim, French and other foreign languages, namely Arabic, Korean, Mandarin, German and Japanese, are already elective subjects for interested students and have been included in the national curriculum structure since the 2006 Curriculum until the current Independent Curriculum (Kurikulum Merdeka).
Moreover, at the vocational school (SMK) level majoring in hospitality and tourism, non-English foreign language subjects are included in the subjects as a skills program to support skills.
"In May 2026 the Ministry of Education and Culture plans to launch a Non-English Foreign Language Certification Program which includes Arabic, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, German and French. This scheme has been opened and reaches more than 120 vocational schools with a target of 13 thousand students", he said.
Therefore, said Salim, instead of requiring French or Portuguese, the P2G believes that what is most urgent to improve is students' basic abilities in English, Indonesian and mathematics from elementary school onwards.
Because, he said, the SMA Academic Ability Test (TKA) results for 2025 were considered saddening because the average English score was 24.93, mathematics 36.10 and Indonesian language 55.38.
"Instead of forcing French and Portuguese to be taught at all levels of school, it is more urgent for the government to improve students' poor abilities in mathematics, English and Indonesian at school", he said.
During the president's state visit to Paris, France on Thursday May 28, Prabowo instructed all schools in Indonesia to start implementing French as a subject.
In his speech at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Prabowo claimed that he had visited France three times this year. He claimed relations between the two countries were at a very good stage and wanted to improve relations in terms of science and technology, as well as education.
"I have instructed that all school levels in Indonesia must learn French, looking at future world developments", said Prabowo in his speech posted on the Presidential Secretariat YouTube channel on Thursday evening. (wis/thr/wis)
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Perhimpunan Guru Respons Rencana Prabowo Wajibkan Bahasa Prancis".]
