BLIB produces first class instructors

BLIB produces first class instructors

By Ridwan M. Sijabat

BANDUNG (JP): Name the most prestigious college in this city
and every one will agree it is the Bandung Institute of
Technology (ITB). But Bandung is also home to dozens of top notch
colleges to stake the city's claim as one of Indonesia's main
centers of excellence. Something about the Bandung air and
atmosphere, it seems, makes it an ideal place to study.

One institution that decided to capitalize on this is the
Balai Latihan Instruktur Bandung (BLIB), or the Bandung
Instructor Training Center. Founded in 1989, the center is
intended to provide a place where people get the education and
training in instructorship, and some apprenticeship to allow
trainees clock some "flying hours" to start with.

Then they are sent to become instructors at various vocational
training centers all over Indonesia.

But that is as far as it goes. The center is producing
instructors. It has no pretense that it is producing
professionals in their respective fields of work.

One trainee recognizes its limitations.

"After nearly three years of studying at the center, I'm not
sure that I will become a professional welder. Because my `flight
hours' in welding is still low," 35-year-old Siswanto from Dili,
East Timor, told The Jakarta Post.

Siswanto and 39 other trainees are now working hard to
complete the training program and earn the college's diploma to
make them qualified instructors. They will be able to practice
their skill but only as instructors, at least for a number of
years after their graduation.

The trainees are all employees of the Ministry of Manpower.
They are staff of the ministry's vocational training centers.
Upon their completion at the Bandung center, they will be sent
back to where they came from. For the moment at least, they can
forget about lucrative pay in the private sector because they are
tied to a government job.

Not easy

Siswanto says a professional welder can earn up to Rp 5
million a month working in a shipyard or with an oil company.

He says welding is not easy work and a welder needs many years
of experience before he can call himself a professional. "You
can't compare it with everyday welders who don't know the art of
welding. Welding sheets of metal or aluminum to make tanker ship
or aircraft is quite different from welding pieces of metals
together to make a fence."

Didik Sofyan from Surabaya, who is specializing in machining,
says he finds the program very demanding and all encompassing.

"We're not only required to learn how to operate machines, we
are also expected to be able to make tools needed to repair
broken machines," he said.

Didik said he has already mastered operating a computer,
manual lathe machines, milling machines, and tool-grinding
machines.

The training center has it all, or almost all the equipment
that it needs to train would-be instructors. Teaching and
supervision in the program is run by nine people who were trained
in Germany.

Joint design

The training program was designed jointly by the Ministry of
Manpower, being the main user of these instructors, the Baden-
Wurttemberg state government in Germany, and the Bandung Teachers
Training Institute (IKIP).

In the five years of its operation, BLIB has already produced
over 300 qualified instructors.

That is hardly enough.

The Ministry of Manpower has 153 vocational training centers
employing 2,300 instructors all over the country.

Now that the vocational training centers are being revamped by
Minister of Manpower Abdul Latief to provide the basis of his new
industrial apprenticeship program, the presence of qualified
instructors is even more crucial.

Many of these vocational centers at present suffer from a lack
of credibility, in part because of poor facilities, but also in
part because the instructors are hardly qualified.

To beef up the credentials of the instructors trained at BLIB,
the center is working with local manufacturing industries to
provide them with a two-month apprenticeship stint.

This will give the instructors some idea of what it is like in
the real world.

Useful

Supandi, a 37-year old trainee from Jayapura, Irian Jaya, says
he finds the apprenticeship very useful.

His two-month experience at a garment factory allowed him to
know about the production process in the factory and the levels
of skill sought by the industry world. "Sure I learned a lot. Now
I can recognize the qualifications needed by the industry."

Eddy Daud, the coordinator of BLIB education and training
program says the trainees also attend classes at the school of
technology the Bandung Teachers' Training Institute.

"They learn mechanic technology, applied mathematics,
technical drawing and vocational pedagogy," he said. "Forty
percent of the 5,000-hour program is for theory. The 60 percent
goes into training."