Rudman's City: Market whims steer varsity away from valuable study

The University of Auckland has gone out of its way in recent times to promote itself as one of the intellectual power houses of this part of the world - the brain box of the nation.

But even up in the ivory tower on Princes St, higher thought has to make way for the whims of the market.

The university's three teachers of Indonesian language have discovered this. With only five students having completed first-year Indonesian language studies last year, the course has been canned and the future of the department is under discussion.

Dean of arts Doug Sutton argues that "levels of funding being as they are, we cannot offer programmes in any area where there is very, very limited enrolments. It's just not on."

To act as if it were would be to force overcrowding in other courses and would not be fair, he says.

For the administrators trying to balance the books and cater to student needs, I guess this makes sense.

But as part of the larger picture of New Zealand being part of the wider Pacific and Asian community, it doesn't.

Auckland's abandonment of first-year Indonesian this year, combined with a simultaneous decision at Victoria University of Wellington, leaves New Zealand with no tertiary teaching of the language and culture of our nearest Asian neighbour.

With a population of more than 200 million, Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world.

It's also a major trading partner. In the year to December 31, it took $483 million worth of our exports, equal to our trade with Italy and Singapore.

In Indonesia's case, it's a trade which doubled in a year.

As well as an expanding trading partner, Indonesia is also the country that our nearest and closest ally, Australia, conjures up in its nightmare war scenarios.

If ever there was a nation we should be getting alongside through its language and culture, it is Indonesia.

Instead, our two big universities drop first-year study. The reason: lack of student demand.

All that is left is the sweet sounds of the Indonesian gamelan orchestras that seem to be de rigueur in our university music schools.

For historian Nicholas Tarling, who pioneered Southeast Asian study at the University of Auckland more than 30 years ago, it's a sorry affair. "Ever innovative, New Zealand is, it seems, pioneering the ignorance economy.

"It's a curious conclusion that because 18-year-olds don't chose to study Indonesian, therefore nobody should. It's a curious way of providing for expertise."

The university did go cap in hand to the Asia 2000 Foundation for help but left empty-handed. Executive director Tim Groser told its staff he was "in no position to solve their underlying financial problem." He has only $3 million a year (50/50 from Government and industry) and nothing to spare.

While he sympathises with the university administrators' woes, Mr Groser, who was New Zealand Ambassador to Jakarta from 1994 to 1997, expresses deep concern "about the lack of Indonesian expertise in this country which will inevitably be the consequence ... of nobody teaching this language."

Diplomat that he was, he sees no immediate solution. People like himself must encourage a broad debate about the importance of Indonesia to our future, he says. They have to stand up and say Indonesia does matter. If attitudes can be changed generally, that will "influence things at the sharp end."

Professor Sutton insists that "in the national interest as well as the intellectual interest, Indonesia must be seen as very important."

The rub though, is that "the university is a publicly funded institution which is committed to putting resources in place in order to meet properly and fully the needs of students."

The university is increasingly dependent on student fees for its existence. One can appreciate its swaying to market demands. But if the universities are to abdicate the responsibility for educating us on issues of national interest, who is going to do it? The Holmes show?