Habibie wants more graduates
Habibie wants more graduates
JAKARTA (JP): State Minister of Research and Technology B.J.
Habibie said yesterday that the various "strategic industries"
which he supervises need more top Indonesian technical graduates
in order to flourish.
The 10 companies which operate under the Agency for the
Supervision of Strategic Industries (BPIS) currently have only
3,967 university graduates of technical studies, or a mere eight
percent, out of total employees of more than 45,000, Habibie said
during a hearing with the House of Representatives
These state enterprises could do with more technical
graduates, he told the House's Commission I, which deals with
national security issues.
The majority of the employees of the 10 companies are non-
technical university graduates and undergraduates.
"Ideally there should be at least 10 percent university
graduates with technical background working in the state-owned
enterprises under BPIS," he said.
The 10 enterprises under BPIS supervision are PT IPTN
(aircraft manufacture), PT PAL (shipbuilding), PT Pindad (arms
manufacture), PT Dahana (industrial explosive manufacture), PT
Krakatau Steel, PT Boma Bisma Indra (energy and factory equipment
manufacture) PT Barata Indonesia (heavy duty and agricultural
equipment manufacture), PT INKA (locomotive manufacture), PT INTI
(telecommunications) and PT LEN Industri (electronics and
electric components).
Habibie said Indonesia needed more highly-skilled workers to
deal with the rapidly changing technology.
"We have to develop our workers' skills and knowledge in order
to deal with the growth of technology in the future," he said.
Habibie said that if Indonesia was capable of producing more
technology graduates, the country would be well placed to compete
with any nation in the world, in part because Indonesians would
be willing to accept lower salaries.
He said that Indonesia must seize the opportunity presented by
the rapid economic growth that the Asia-Pacific region is
currently experiencing.
He cited a forecast by the Deutsche Bank which said that, by
the year 2019, Asia's new growing economies, including Indonesia,
will account for more than 50 percent of the world's gross
domestic product. Japan, the United States and Europe together
will only account for 40 percent and African and Latin American
countries the other 10 percent, Habibie quoted the study as
predicting. (imn)