Kurnianingrat Sastrawinata | |
|---|---|
 Kurnianingrat, c. 1950 | |
| Born | Koernia[1] 4 September 1919 |
| Died | 18 October 1993 (aged 74) Jakarta, Indonesia |
| Alma mater | Cornell University (MA) |
| Known for | |
| Spouse | |
| Father | Sulaeman Sastrawinata |
Raden Ajeng Kurnianingrat Sastrawinata (4 September 1919 – 18 October 1993),[a] more commonly known mononymously as Kurnianingrat, was an Indonesian educator and pioneer of the country's curriculum for teaching English as a foreign language. She was deputy director of Indonesia's English Language Inspectorate, a branch of the Ministry of Education, Instruction, and Culture, from 1953 to 1956. Later, she served as the head of the English studies department at the University of Indonesia.
Born to an aristocratic Sundanese family—her father the regent of Ciamis in West Java (then part of the Dutch East Indies colony) and her mother a schoolteacher from nearby Garut—Kurnianingrat attended Dutch-language schools and boarded with Dutch and Indo-European families. After high school, she graduated from teacher training schools with a teaching diploma, specializing in psychology. Her first teaching assignment, in 1938, was in Batavia (now Jakarta), where she first learned about the growing Indonesian nationalist movement. During and immediately following the Japanese occupation of the Indies, she worked and lived in Yogyakarta and was witness to and a participant in the Indonesian National Revolution. There, she met Indonesian prime minister Ali Sastroamidjojo, whom she would marry in 1970. Two of her students, Daoed Joesoef and Nugroho Notosusanto, became ministers of education.
Kurnianingrat spent time abroad to further her education; first, a one-year study in Sydney to learn about Australia's education system, then two years at Cornell University in the United States to complete a Master of Arts degree in English literature. She formed friendships with a number of foreign scholars of Indonesia, including Herbert Feith and his wife, Betty, Ailsa Thomson Zainuddin, and George McTurnan Kahin. Because of her experience working with the Feiths and Zainuddin, who were among Australia's first volunteers working on assignments for the Indonesian government, she became an early supporter of the Australia's international volunteering programs.
- ^ Gunseikanbu 1943, p. 86.
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