The Embassy of Indonesia in Qatar is holding an online Indonesian language intensive course, which opened on September 3 and will run until December 5.
In a statement, the embassy said the programme is classified into two groups. First is the Bahasa Indonesia untuk Penutur Asing (BIPA) or Indonesian language for non-native speakers programme, which is designed for Qatari citizens and other foreign communities who want to learn the Indonesian language.
The second is Bahasa Indonesia untuk Kita (BIKTA) or Indonesian language for the Indonesian young diaspora. It is created for Indonesian children who are living abroad, especially in Qatar, and still need to learn the Indonesian language.
The teachers for this programme are trained and certified by Ministry of Education and Culture of Indonesia. Some 88 Indonesian children, aged 8 to 15 years old, are registered for the BIKTA programme while BIPA is being attended by 12 participants from various nationalities such as Qatar, Hungaria, and Italy, among others.
Indonesian ambassador Ridwan Hassan said the programme will allow the participants to learn and understand not only the Indonesian language, but also the Indonesian culture. “Language is key in our society. Google Translate may help a lot, but learning language is still irreplaceable” he said.
“Now we are in the sixth batch for BIKTA, and third batch for BIPA. Alhamdulillah the number of participants is increasing, compared to the previous batch,” said Ali Murtado, head of the Social Culture at the Indonesian Embassy, who is responsible for the programme.
Indonesian ambassador Ridwan Hassan and other officials.
Some of the participants.
