Decline in human resources quality worries government

Decline in human resources quality worries government

By Hermawan Sulistyo

JAKARTA (JP): Over the past 20 years, there has been a complete reversal of attitudes toward wealth and money. Until the mid-1970s, critics of the state still discussed whether our strategy should follow capitalistic or socialistic modes of development. Since then we have been on the path toward capitalist and liberal courses of development.

Free market and McWorld phenomena take the forms of malls, cafes, retail networks and others. Under these circumstances, we extol money and other enjoyment coming from material culture.

One implication of this course of development is the changing attitudes of youth toward employment. Commercial sectors, which promise the best career development, attract the best talents coming out of universities. Students are now talking about entering commercially strategic positions in private businesses rather than securing more traditional job markets. There is a transformation in perceptions toward occupation and work ethics.

Job seekers in the 1970s used to perceive "a job" in a traditional sense. A job was expected to offer a permanent position in a finely structured hierarchy, regardless of how lowly the job was. A job with a monthly salary and other fringe benefits, however insufficient these remunerations were in meeting subsistence level, was the ideal. Moreover, the sought job would give "non-material rewards". Prestige and stature played a prominent role in the process of selecting and securing a job. In all, positions with permanency and security in the long-term were favorites.

Under the above framework of perceptions, state bureaucracy offered the most secure and prestigious positions. In effect, the best talents entering the workforce favored state bureaucracy rather than the private sector.

Although I have no data, and I doubt that such data ever existed, it seems that prior to the job market in the late 1970s the most favorite profession was in the military. The military academy attracted the best of the best from high school graduates; it was the center of excellence of post-secondary education, measured from the quality of the students.

Now, tough competition in the job market on the one hand has limited the choice of job seekers. On the other hand, this situation opens up a wider range of variations in employment. Money and the degree of mobility from one job to another are the decisive factors of a job seeker rather than long-term security and permanency. Therefore, the dynamics of the private sector, which now offers more possibilities for advancement has become more attractive than the relatively inert bureaucracy.

Again, there is no data on the quality of high school and university graduates, and especially on their preparation for future careers. But it's not hard to guess that becoming a bureaucrat or civil servant, as well as military officer, these days is the least attractive career. The private sector offers almost unlimited opportunities to economically move upward. In a McWorld condition, it only means to place oneself in a socially better position.

Within the state bureaucracy, a graduate of elementary or middle school can only secure a position in the first grouping of civil service (Golongan I); a graduate of high school and academy (three-year college education) secures second grouping; and a university graduate receives third grouping. With the first monthly salary ranging from US$30 to $100, civil service now attracts only the least talented job seekers. Only they who lost in the competition to enter "proper" employment will enter the ranks of bureaucracy.

The highest level that a bureaucrat can achieve is first echelon (Eselon I). A cabinet minister leads a department. Under his or her leadership there are several first rank bureaucrats, most of them politically appointed; the high-ranking officials are not career bureaucrats. Therefore, within the next 20 to 30 years, the civil service's lower ranks will be filled by incompetent civil servants, as a result of today's changing attitudes of job seekers. The state apparatus will face a difficult task overcoming these structural deficiencies. Otherwise, in the long run, we will face not a politically weak private sector and House of Representatives but a weak civil service and a strong business sector.

The writer is a researcher with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, and is a fellow with the Program for Southeast Asian Studies, Arizona State University, United States.