Experts advise brain drain for Indonesia
Experts advise brain drain for Indonesia
JAKARTA (JP): Overseas university and school graduates should
rush the foreign job markets rather return home to outdo their
domestic competitors, educational observers agreed yesterday.
Thoby Mutis, Director of the Post-graduate Program at Trisakti
University, said yesterday the race for jobs would be unfair if
it pitted domestic against overseas graduates.
"Now the global market is rolling on, overseas graduates must
take their chances of getting jobs abroad," Thoby said.
A member of the House of Representatives Commission IX which
oversees education and culture, Wuryanto, sided with Thoby,
saying foreign university alumni would be head-and-shoulders
above their domestic counterparts.
"Due to limited employment at home, overseas graduates are
called on to seek international level jobs," said Wuryanto of the
ruling Golkar faction.
Vice President Try Sutrisno said 130,000 Indonesian university
graduates remained unemployed this year, most of them from the
social and cultural sciences. Try said the domestic formal job
market only managed to employ between 50 and 60 percent of
university graduates annually.
The two experts agreed that foreign university graduates were
welcome to come home only to fill the shoes of expatriates.
"Overseas graduates may take part in domestic competition, but
only to vie for vacancies at multinational companies operating in
this country," Thoby was quoted by Antara.
Thoby said Indonesians going international at multinational
companies would end the country's long-time reputation as a mere
exporter of maids and other cheap workers.
He also suggested domestic universities initiate outward-
looking efforts by admitting more foreign applicants, as other
Southeast Asian countries have done.
"We can recruit experts from various field studies to run an
international-level university," Thoby said.
He predicted that education would be a good prospective
business for countries competing in a free market.
"All organizers of educational institutions should be alert to
this possibility," Thoby said. (amd)