Jakarta (MidLand) – Trade Minister for 2011-2014 and entrepreneur Gita Wirjawan encouraged Indonesian children to communicate skillfully using different international languages to increase their ability to negotiate at the highest levels, because language is a catalyst of change.
Communicating in various languages, according to Gita, makes someone capable of telling stories (storytelling) more actively so that their productivity is increasingly noticed and they can even compete globally.
“In the future, we will learn international languages, whether it is Mandarin, Japanese, Italian or English,” said Gita, who also serves on the board of commissioners of an educational technology start-up (Edtech) from Indonesia, “Cakap”, during the company’s 5th anniversary event in Jakarta on Thursday.
According to Gita, investing in good language education is the key to the success of national education.
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He encouraged his working group at “Cakap” to be able to move the needle of the international speaking population in Indonesia from around 10 million to 100 million in the future.
“Less than 10 million capacity or propensity Indonesia’s ability to communicate in international languages, including English, is very small compared to its population of about 280 million. “So my dream is to move the needle to 100 million people in Indonesia,” Gita said.
Gita recalled that the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) want a review of the order previously initiated by large countries such as the United States and Great Britain.
“Because of the revision, because of multipolarity, competition is becoming more intense. If competition is becoming more intense, the most important thing is competitiveness, that competitiveness manifests itself in productivity,” Gita said.
If the countries of the world tend to organize their relations bilaterally (relations between two countries), no longer multilaterally (relations between several countries), then linguistic capacity becomes an important point for obtaining understandings that increase productivity.
“In the past, at a multilateral level, it was easier to negotiate. Because if, for example, my productivity was only five shirts, yours was 10 shirts, I could push the party with the highest productivity to help me negotiate with you But now, bilaterally, there are not just two, not 193 countries,” Gita said.
Therefore, a country is willing to negotiate to establish a more productive relationship, such as a commitment to unrestricted education (education without borders), then the country has an interest in measuring the extent to which Indonesia’s productivity is as large or small as the value of the investment it will provide.
“For example, if we are in the same room as Singapore, Indonesia’s productivity is only $25,000 per year for goods and services. Meanwhile, Singapore’s productivity is 211,000 per capita per year for goods and services” , Gita said.
Logically, Indonesia’s productivity is less attractive to Singapore. But the investment can still happen if the negotiating parties have equal language skills so they can understand each other.
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Reporter: Abdu Faisal
Editor: Zita Meirina
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