The amount of Chinese investment in Indonesia has grown greatly in the past 10 years since the signing of the Free Trade Agreements between China and ASEAN leaders. In South Sulawesi, Indonesia, many Chinese-funded projects have started up. Top level universities in China now welcome foreign students and some offer scholarships. With the growing number of job openings, business opportunities and advanced study options it is apparent that learning the Chinese language can be an advantage in one’s effort to achieve success in life and ensure a prosperous future.

With this in mind, SEEDS initiated a partnership with Universitas Negeri Makassar (UNM) in Indonesia to provide Mandarin courses to students and graduates. UNM has a good reputation for nurturing young leaders especially in the areas of language and education. It also has experience in offering courses in foreign languages as well as Bahasa Indonesia for foreigners. With all these advantages UNM is a strategic place to start Mandarin courses. This partnership comes with a placement of a Chinese native speaker.

The first class started in June 2016. All students are young graduates. One of them is working in a mining business and he has to liaise with Chinese investors regularly, others are teachers and others are working in other sectors. They all have the desire to learn another language to be more competitive.  The courses equip students with understanding and speaking Mandarin, as well as reading and writing Chinese characters. The students expressed that Chinese is hard to learn but they are making progress fast!