Govt told to treat vocational education institutions fairly

JAKARTA (JP): An observer asked the government on Wednesday to treat vocational education institutions and their graduates equally with other higher educational institutions, including universities.

President Director of the Indonesian Institute for Education and Development of Professions (LP3I) Tengku Zulkarnain said on Wednesday that many vocational education institutions in the country, including LP3I, were only considered as institutes which conducted study courses.

"We provide diploma programs for high school graduates, just like universities," said Tengku, a former English linguistics lecturer at North Sumatra State University (USU) in Medan.

"Our graduates cannot continue their education in universities or colleges because of LP31 status as a course center. They have to start again from the first semester although they have already learned the first semester subjects of the universities and passed the tests," he added.

He said that the regulations of the Ministry of National Education ruled that institutions, like LP3I, have to be under the administration of the Ministry's Directorate General for Higher Education (Dikti).

"But we refuse to do so because we then have to insert compulsory subjects such as citizenship, state ideology and basic social science. It's just a waste of time.

"Besides, what do our students need the subjects for ?" he said, adding that LP3I was aimed at producing skilled employees.

Dikti, Tengku said, also tended to place lecturers from the Coordinating Body for Private Colleges (Kopertis) who are not qualified.

Subsequently LP3I chose to be under the Ministry's Directorate General of Informal Education and Sport (Diklusepora) with the consequence that they were given the status as a study course institute only.

"That is irrational and such intellectual arrogance," Tengku said, while adding that the ministry should establish a Directorate General for Colleges instead.

Established in 1989, Tengku said that the 22 branches of LP3I all over the country have produced some 25,000 skilled employees in the fields of business administration, secretarial jobs, computer science, accounting, English, management, tourism, business, and marketing.

With around 1,000 lecturers, LP3I has its own curriculum and syllabus, and job training programs.

"And now the ministry asks to copy our syllabus. That is nonsense. We have spent years and hundreds of millions of rupiah to develop the syllabus. What else do we get?" Tengku said.

Although LP3I has yet to receive equal accreditation with universities, Tengku said that it had already been recognized by several universities in Australia, Malaysia and England.

"Our students can join several universities in those countries directly, like Australia's Queensland University and Malaysia's Damansara Utama College. Isn't that ironic?" he commented.

The government, he said, should support this kind of institution as it provided more applicable programs and produced more skilled workers than other tertiary education institutes.

"Middle management employees are those who should be empowered, like nurses and accountants, as the market demand is high. Therefore, it can boost our economy," Tengku said.

Based on data from the Minister of Manpower, professions like nurses, agro-industry workers, sailors, and information technology specialists are in high demand by other countries.

Japan has asked for around 400,000 nurses as fewer and fewer Japanese youth want to become nurses. In Taiwan, there is a need for around 400,000 construction workers from Indonesia, as Filipinos workers were fired when the relationship between the two countries worsened.

As for the United States, around 400,000 to 500,000 sailors are sought.

But due to language problems and failure to meet certain requirements, only few of Indonesian workers are hired. (hdn)