Many In Indonesia Now Speak English

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30369, 19 February 1964, Page 21

Many In Indonesia Now Speak English

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, February 18. An extraordinary number of persons in Indonesia are now speaking English, according to Dr. W. K. Bunce, the assistant director (Far East) of the United States Information Agency, who arrived in Wellington on a short visit yesterday. Dr. Bunce has recently attended a conference .of United States agency public affairs officers in the Philippines, and since then has been visiting posts in his area. While in Wellington he will examine the progress being made in the establishment of the new" United States Information Service Library here. It was part of the’ work of the U.S.I.S. to teach English to the people of the Far East, This was done not in the

schools but by teachers recruited from the American community in the various countries, he said.

Probably the biggest library of the service in the Far East was in Tokyo, which has a catalogue of 26,000 volumes as well as a periodical supply of 300 magazine titles. Throughout . the territory there were also many small libraries stocked by the service.

Dr. Bunce, who is 57, obtained his doctorate of philosophy at the Ohio State University in 1939. He was appointed public affairs officer at the American Embassy. Tokyo, in 1952, and was with the information agency in Washington in 1955. He took up his present position in July, 1962.