`Bill unable to improve human resources'

`Bill unable to improve human resources'

Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara

Minister of Manpower and Transmigration Jacob Nuwa Wea has joined
the chorus of criticism against the education bill, saying
changes are needed to the draft law if the country is committed
to improving its human resources enough to compete with
counterparts across ASEAN.

"We should not expect a miracle to come from the sky to repair
the low quality of our work force. The nation needs to be
forward-thinking to clearly set the direction of the national
education system.

"This means the government and the House of Representatives
must make necessary modifications to the current education bill
and design an education curriculum for all education institutions
at all levels to solve the serious education-related problems and
meet the challenges the nation is facing now and in the future,"
he said.

Jacob was speaking on the sidelines of a meeting between
senior labor officials from ASEAN and its dialog partners China,
Japan and South Korea here on Wednesday.

He insisted that all citizens had the right to an education to
develop their personality and intelligence.

"But the labor market both at home and overseas requires
professional, skilled, intelligent people in the first place,
instead of just pious workers." he said, in an apparent reference
to the religious requirements being debated in the bill.

He called on the government to simplify the curriculum to help
students develop their own talent and expertise from elementary
school onward, otherwise the nation would not be able to improve
the quality of education and human resources or catch up with
developed countries.

Jacob hails from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle,
whose faction at the House has demanded more discussions on the
controversial bill before its endorsement, citing national unity.

Insisting that he was qualified to comment on the bill, Jacob
called on all sides, especially the House, the education and
religion ministries and all education institutions across the
country to face the fact that most of Indonesia's work force was
undereducated.

He said 59 percent of the 100 million Indonesian people in the
work force only had either an elementary school education or were
dropouts. Around 20 percent finished junior high school, 16
percent were high school graduates, 5 percent were university or
academy graduates and those not in the work force were mostly
uneducated.

The minister asserted that the low quality of human resources
had raised problems in finding employment for people both at home
and overseas.

"The low quality of education and human resources has weakened
our workers' bargaining position vis-a-vis their employers in
improving their social welfare. Even more unfortunate, it has
contributed to the serious unemployment, which has reached 40
million, 10 percent of which is categorized as open
unemployment," he said.

The remaining 90 percent is classified as disguised
unemployment, indicated by the fact that they work less than 35
hours per week.

Jacob said further that the low quality of education in the
country has also caused Indonesian workers to lack
competitiveness overseas, compared to other ASEAN neighbors
Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.

He admitted that the arrests of 118 -- not 100 as reported
earlier -- Indonesian women employed as sex workers in Saudi
Arabia, at least 100 others in the Philippines and 12 male
workers on death row in Malaysia were evidence that the quality
of the country's human resources was at an alarming level.

Citing another example, he said that there were thousands of
workers in "training programs" in Japan and South Korea, but
those programs were deceiving because the people actually work in
small-scale businesses with salaries far lower than the minimum
wage in the two countries. The program has been running since
1992.