Education lags behind other countries

YOGYAKARTA: Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Yusuf Kalla said on Tuesday that the quality of education in Indonesia lagged behind that of other countries.

The minister cited how easily students could graduate from schools as a evidence of the deteriorating condition of the education in the country.

"As a result, most of our graduates are qualified only for manual labor, as they have failed miserably to present themselves fairly in the labor market," he told reporters.

If the declining trend persisted, he feared that in the next five years the quality of the country's education would fall to the level of the 1960s.

He thus called on relevant parties to make stringent efforts to improve the country's education. -- Antara