Meritious system for progress

From Kompas

The Indonesian people have a powerful unifying motto: Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity). Unfortunately, in practice, this has not been well implemented.

In the appointment of someone for a particular position, it still often happens that one is not judged on the basis of one's professional merits such as high dedication, discipline, honest, creativeness, innovativeness and broad-mindedness.

In such a situation, one may still consider because of one's ethnic group, religion and former university.

In the Busang gold mine fraud some time ago, talks touched on the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) as the alma mater.

Judgment of employees is sometimes still based on gender. Obviously, all these examples run counter to the philosophy set out in Bhinneka Tunggal Ika.

It is not enough just to understand what the motto means without translating it into reality in our daily life, especially with respect to the promotion of an employee in a company. With regard to a job, it is the qualification of the person doing the job that counts.

To ensure progress and success, choose people who are highly qualified, irrespective of their ethnic group, alma mater, religion or sex.

The only thing that a foreign company considers in recruiting an employee is his qualifications.

Dr F. PUDIYANTO SURADIBROTO

Jakarta