Wrong

If you think that IELTS test is the only English test you need to take in order to be accepted by universities in the UK, you’re utterly incorrect. Due to the breakout of the newest corona virus which followed by stay-at-home policy imposed by almost every authority in the world, IELTS hasn’t become the only requirement. Instead of taking this test that was founded by two countries – Australia and the UK, undergraduate and postgraduate students may submit another globally-recognized examination such as (in home) TOEFL, Duolingo English Test and Password Test of English.

Witnessing this development and change, I’m amazed by the development and rapid changing in English education or test system. In the near future, based on the exponential development of both technological capacity and human creativity, we are to witnessing another type English test system which will serve brand new customers’ needs and preferences. We know that people follow after the technological breakthrough, which then turns their preferences and needs into something we don’t new yet. Whatever these forms may be, we must be ready to cope with and meet the need after all.

Indonesia has BIPA (Bahasa Indonesia untuk Penutur Asing) which means Indonesia Language for Foreign Speaker. It can be put in one category, semantically, with ESL (English as a Second Language) or EFL (English as a Foreign Language). However, I’m not quite well informed if Bahasa Indonesia has a standard test which as reliable as TOEFL and IELTS in measuring one’s ability and fluency to speak Bahasa Indonesia. In this era, where international interaction and cooperation occur in almost every part of life, the need for standardized Bahasa Indonesia testing is becoming essential. Universities, government agencies or private sectors should have seen this opportunity, yet the expected responses haven’t yet to come.

Of course, if I had sufficient money, I’d have been investing my personal capital for this project. I love language both Bahasa Indonesia and English. In fact, both Indonesia and English literature were my main interest when I was in high school. I was familiar with unpopular names for a student as old as I was e.g. Chekov, Tolstoy, Solzenitsin, Edgar Allan Poe, Hemingway, Kundera, Yukio Mishima, Umar Khayam, Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana, A.A. Navis, young Seno Gumira Ajidarma etc. I still have that old enthusiasm for reading theirs. Anyway, I have to mention my brother who introduced their work to me unintentionally. He, when I was still in the third or 4^th grade, brought home many novels, books and magazines which displayed the mentioned names provocatively. I admit that I and my brother were crazy about soccer as well at that time, but we managed to spare our free time to literature equally. I think, I still can find some of the books or magazines in my parents’ home. It was an old story. To be honest, due to my duty and workload, I’m struggling to serve my time reading my favourite books or novels, even though grabbing them is as easy as walking to my living room since they are safely kept in my closet.   

Literature is not a favorite subject in college not to mention in high school. Grabbing every minute information about local literature is a matter of moving fingers, but its popularity seems hardly shift from secondary. It is not my duty to popularize literature. We, the people, are not burdened by any law, act, statute or regulation to make Indonesian literature being a mainstream like it used to be. It does become our moral obligation, but no one holds the right to invoke such moral imperatives.  

Cibinong, April 7, 2020