The Master of Indonesian Language Study Program (PSMBI) was initiated in 1989 and began admitting students in 1990. Three years later, precisely on October 21, 1993, the Director General of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education and Culture issued the operational permit through Decree Number 591/DIKTI/KEP/1993. At its inception, PSMBI was part of the Postgraduate Program of Universitas Hasanuddin. At that time, all master's and doctoral study programs operated under the umbrella of the Postgraduate Program.
Indonesian, as the unifying language mandated by the Youth Pledge of October 28, 1928, is a remarkably distinct cultural product of the Indonesian nation. In its development, it was established as the official state language as stipulated in Article 36, Chapter XV of the 1945 Constitution. Entering the 21st century, the world has experienced increasing globalization, causing global languages such as English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, and Arabic to strengthen as media of international communication. This reality has driven various entities, including educational institutions, to step forward and provide an academic framework for the presence of the Indonesian language as a national language among the Indonesian people in particular and the international community in general.
The establishment of PSMBI was motivated by an effort to maintain the existence of the Indonesian language as a national language amidst the interaction of existing international languages. Academic study is necessary to position Indonesian as a standard language, along with its structures and rules elaborated into a number of courses, including Indonesian Phonology, Indonesian Morphosyntax, Indonesian Semantics and Lexicography, Critical Discourse Analysis, Functional Semiotics, Sociolinguistics, and Indonesian Error Analysis.
