Minister Calls on Universities to Align Curricula with Industry Needs

Jakarta (ANTARA) - Minister of Manpower Yassierli has called on higher education institutions across Indonesia to forge closer collaboration with the business world to bridge the current competency gap. “Unfortunately, our challenge today is that there is a gap between higher education institutions and industrial reality. This is what I believe needs to be brought closer together,” Yassierli said during the Annual Meeting of the Association of Mathematics and Natural Sciences Teacher Training Institutions (AMLI) in Jakarta on Thursday. The minister assessed that this gap directly affects the optimisation of labour absorption, noting that hundreds of thousands of university graduates have yet to secure suitable employment. “Unemployment among university graduates in Indonesia currently stands at 900,000 people. This is our reality today,” he continued. Yassierli explained that the crucial issue is not merely the availability of jobs, but rather the phenomenon of skills mismatch. He noted that this often occurs when university graduates work in positions that are not fully aligned with their educational backgrounds. According to the minister’s observations, one of the major challenges that universities must resolve is the lengthy administrative process required to adjust curricula, while changes in the industrial sector occur very responsively and dynamically. In supporting the noble mission of higher education institutions, the Ministry of Manpower is positioning itself proactively as a ‘finishing’ instrument for university graduates seeking to enter the job market. “What finishing do we provide? If there are skills that are still lacking, we facilitate them with various skills training,” Yassierli stated.