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