College grads inspired to be job creators
Debbie A. Lubis, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Indra Marwan, a 32-year-old finance and banking major has filled out hundreds of job applications over the last five years. Despite two years experience in a financial institution, he has not been able to get any job since he was laid off in 1997.
Oddie Bahar, 23, a fresh graduate of Bandung Institute of Technology majoring in fine arts, said that he chose not to apply for a formal job due to the unconducive labor market but, instead, was trying out his entrepreneurial skills.
Indra and Oddie are two of nearly one million job seekers who have spent some five years studying at university but are still unemployed.
Education expert Arief Rachman regretted that students are been given too many scientific theories during their study and no programs were implemented to develop practical skills to apply their knowledge in the real world.
"Universities should change the students' mind-set from being job seekers to job creators through an equal balance of theory and practice in every lecture," he told The Jakarta Post
The high unemployment rate among college graduates was revealed in the latest report of the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) last Monday. It reported that some 7.7 percent of 8 million jobless people were college graduates.
The country has a total labor force of 97.6 million.
"This is not something I had anticipated. I have to work as an employee because it is impossible for me to establish my own finance company," Indra said, adding that his job applications were often rejected since most companies sought candidates from reputable universities and with several years work experience.
University of Indonesia Rector Usman Chatib Warsa said that the inclusion of entrepreneurship in universities' curriculum would help encourage graduates to create jobs, instead of seeking jobs.
"Graduates from any discipline must be able to create jobs because with the entrepreneurship program, they are expected to have the competence and skills to do business ," he said, adding that the Ministry of National Education has suggested that universities develop the entrepreneurship program in their undergraduate curriculum.
Usman believes that the excessive number of university graduates and limited available jobs would not be a problem if universities prepare students with entrepreneurial skills.
"I decided to apply my know-how in fine arts through drawing comics so that I don't have to be concerned with the fierce competition among job seekers," Oddie said.
Arief, also the chairman of the National Committee for UNESCO, urged the government and universities to inform prospective students about the availability of job opportunities before they chose their field of study.
"The government can also make strategic plans and based on available data, provide information as to what disciplines would be useful, because the data will show which market is already saturated by graduates from certain majors," he said.