'More science graduates needed'
'More science graduates needed'
JAKARTA (JP): A planning expert has said Indonesia must
increase the number of students graduating annually from natural
sciences and engineering to 65,000 by 2019 -- a rate four times
that recorded in 1994.
Agus Pakpahan of the National Development Planning Board
(Bappenas) told a seminar Saturday the increase would mean more
than 1 percent of Indonesia's population would possess scientific
and engineering skills -- a percentage on par with that recorded
in developed countries.
Pakpahan said research expenditure should also rise from the
present 0.3 percent of GDP to 2 percent by the end of 2019, with
greater contributions coming from the private sector. An
increased funding level would enable Indonesia to survive a free
trade environment through improved competitiveness of human
resources, he said.
Pakpahan was among a group of researchers who addressed
Saturday's seminar on "The Strategies for the Transformation of
the Ummat (Islamic community) into an Industrialized Community",
held by the Institute for Science and Technology Studies.
About 200 Moslem researchers, educated both locally and
abroad, participated in the event which featured Samaun
Samadikun, the former head of the Indonesian Institute of
Sciences and a professor at the Bandung Institute of Technology.
Samaun's paper on human resource development stressed the need
for industry to cooperate with research centers and universities.
He identified the support of financial institutions as an
integral and necessary component of any country's human resource
development.
He said the technologically-advanced countries had used the
first and second world wars as well as the Cold War as
opportunities to build their "scientific and technological human
resources" and the supporting "technostructures".
"Major countries, under the pretext of defense expenditures,
pour funds into various research and industrial centers, which
then supply equipment and service to their captive market, namely
the armed forces," Samaun said.
He suggested comprehensive approaches and support for the
development of Indonesia's human resources.
"We have yet to build a strong tradition of human resource
development. We're still searching for the mode," he said during
a break in the seminar.
"We have yet to develop a clear concept of the kind of
'scientific and technological human resources' -- namely the
people who will be able to develop and make use of technology --
we wish to build."
He declined to say whether Indonesia is ready to transform
into an industrialized community. "There are no criteria to
measure such readiness," he said. "Ready or not, we still have to
do it. We need to develop our human resources.
"In the past, we placed great importance on institution
building. It's now time for us to build people," he said. "We are
never reluctant to pour billions of rupiah into buildings, but we
pinch pennies when it comes to paying for our scientific and
technological human resources."
Samaun said the Islamic community could play an important role
in the endeavor by, among other things, determining the market
for science and technology.
The ummat is already established as a market for science and
technology, he said, but it does not yet have the capacity to
develop these areas.
Other speakers in the seminar were Agus Mahmudi Ismail,
Harijono Djojodihardjo and As Natio Lasman, all researchers at
the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology and
the National Atomic Agency. (swe)