300,000 graduates

300,000 graduates unemployed

From Rakyat Merdeka

The level of disguised unemployment in Indonesia is quite high. Last year, some 300,000 university graduates holding a diploma for a particular study program worked part-time in a field unrelated to their educational background. This year the number must have risen. The reason is that the qualifications of university graduates in Indonesia are not in keeping with market demand.

It is a fact that the standard qualification needed must conform to the level acceptable by foreign companies. When the market is liberalized in 2003, this condition will worsen as graduates of foreign universities will compete with domestic graduates. If the market considers the former more qualified than the latter, our domestic graduates will never win the competition.

Foreign companies investing in our country will prefer to recruit graduates from their own countries. In this context, proficiency in English will be the key to improving our domestic graduates' competitive edge.

MANDALA

Tangerang, Banten