Indonesia is Stepping Up To The Mark! Are you keeping Pace?

Hello -

I am David Knowles from OPUS Management – this is the first of a series of articles discussing DIGITAL AND BLENDED LEARNING for English Language Capacity Building. But before we answer the question ‘How should you learn English?”, the question underlying these teaching and learning techniques is 'Why Learn English?'

In the coming series of short articles and supporting Videos, our primary focus will be on Educational institutions – schools, colleges, language schools. Investment of resources is needed to enable an institution to build capacity in teaching and learning English. Money, time and the allocation of people will all be needed. In these articles, we will ask you to consider why you should plan to allocate those resources and do so efficiently and effectively. You need to manage budgets and also to build learning methods that deliver fast high-quality results.

Our broader view covers the positioning of those educational groups and includes government bodies, state-owned enterprise and private enterprise in the context of Indonesia's positioning internationally.

What do I mean by that? Why is it important to you?

We see Indonesia in the international context. Indonesia is now the 4th largest nation in the world by population and 7th largest by nominal GDP.

So, what? Why should those statistics and forecasts interest educational institutions?

Indonesia is a significant player on the world stage. It is exciting to see the pace and scale of change as Indonesia steps up to its global role in world affairs and world trade and business. Many organisations contribute to that role in many different ways.

All Educational institutions aim to:

· increase their standings in regional and world rankings.

· increase the number of research papers published in international journals

· increase the joint research projects in collaboration with well-known overseas universities

· increase the numbers of internationally recognized PhDs and Masters in their staff.

Many universities already set goals of high TOEFL scores for all graduating First Degree students.

Universities, colleges and schools can only achieve these aspirations if they increase the number of students mastering English to higher standards than at present.

English is still the most convenient international language in diplomacy, trade, business, education and research. Subscribe or follow these discussions or access more information and these articles at www.opusindonesia.com

This series of articles and videos will explore the benefits of building English learning capacity in organisations. We will cover educational institutions, state-owned enterprises, private companies, government organisations and non-government organisations. In addition, we will take a realistic look at the challenges and constraints these organisations face and guide them to the right solutions for particular organisations.