College graduates signed up to fight poverty

College graduates signed up to fight poverty

JAKARTA (JP): The government plans to recruit more college
graduates to help alleviate poverty in rural areas, Minister of
Manpower Abdul Latief said yesterday.

Latief told a gathering of public relations officials from
various government ministries that the graduates will be assigned
to teach villagers how to make money.

The government has so far placed about 2,000 university
graduates in impoverished areas and transmigration sites on the
outer islands.

"They have been quite useful in improving village economies,"
Latief said. He added that most of those sent to rural areas are
experienced in the fields of agriculture and fishery.

"This success has encouraged the government to intensify the
training of more university graduates to be placed in rural
areas," he said.

The program of employing college graduates in rural areas was
designed by the Ministry of Manpower in cooperation with the
Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Transmigration and several
state universities.

Its main objectives are to help those university graduates not
absorbed into the labor market and to enhance economic growth in
rural areas.

Program participants are recruited from state universities and
trained for three months in entrepreneurship and management. They
earn around Rp 300,000 ($135) a month and are expected to be able
to start businesses of their own in about nine months.

The minister said that the government would recruit and train
about 12,500 graduates for the program in order to help ease
unemployment among university graduates.

"If we can place around 12,000 university graduates every
year, the number of jobless university graduates will certainly
decrease, economic growth in rural areas will improve, the
migration of villagers to urban areas will slow and crime in
urban areas will be reduced," he said. (rms)