Minister Latief wants `tailor made' training program

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Manpower Abdul Latief yesterday appealed to all administrators of the government's vocational training centers to design their programs to meet the needs of industry.

"We have to provide skills for workers that are being sought in the labor market," Latief said during a meeting with the heads of the vocational training centers.

In an unusually frank admission, Latief said these centers have not been effective in the past in providing the kind of skilled workers the industry needs.

They existed apparently to simply spend the funds allocated by the government, he said.

He called for the curriculum to be revamped and said that each center must work closely with the provincial administration and industries in their respective locality in designing the curriculum.

Citing an example, he said the center in Bali could develop programs for the needs of the island's tourism industry.

Latief said now is the time for Indonesia to upgrade the quality of its workforce because the rapid economic growth is opening up job opportunities that could only be filled by skilled workers.

He said Indonesia is also phasing out expatriates who were hired because of the shortage of professional workers in the country. The government is also sending fewer unskilled workers abroad and for this better training facilities are needed.

While there may be large unemployment among the unskilled workers in Indonesia, the situation is vastly different for skilled workers.

"There is always a vacancy for skilled workers at home or overseas," Latief said. "Malaysia needs 17,000 skilled Indonesian workers, and local companies have had to hire foreigners to fill certain positions because they could not find Indonesians who are qualified for the jobs."

Refuted

Latief last month also launched a new apprenticeship program which uses the vocational training centers as the basis to work in cooperation with the industry which hires the trainees and provides them with the necessary facilities.

Meanwhile, Director General for Industrial Relations and Labor Standards Suwarto in a separate occasion yesterday refuted the suggestion by the East Java office of the Legal Aid Institute (LBH) that the majority of companies in the province are not paying their workers the minimum wage.

The LBH said its own survey found that as many as 86 percent of 24,000 companies in the province have violated the minimum wage rules. The government claims only four percent have not complied.

Suwarto questioned the validity of the LBH's survey based on what he perceives as weaknesses in the methods of collecting the data, including the fact that some of the respondents were not clearly identified. (rms)