Number of jobless college graduate rising: Wardiman

JAKARTA (JP): More and more college graduates in Indonesia are becoming unemployed despite a growing demand for skilled workers in the job market, Minister of Education and Culture Wardiman Djojonegoro said yesterday.

Unemployed university graduates accounted for 13.51 percent of 3.23 million registered job seekers in 1995, Wardiman said in a seminar discussing unemployment among intellectuals.

Unemployed graduates accounted for 7.8 percent of 1.75 million job seekers in 1990.

Those who studied in non-degree programs at colleges fared slightly better, accounting for 10.98 percent of job seekers in 1995, up from 5.63 percent in 1990.

Wardiman said the figures indicated a mismatch between what the education sector produced, and what industry needed.

He admitted that the rate of economic growth contributed to the problem of unemployed college graduates.

"Take for instance Germany and France which have solid educational systems with hundreds of years of tradition in higher education. In 1996, more than 200,000 German college graduates and 400,000 French college graduates were listed as job seekers," he said.

Indonesia needed some 60,000 new teachers each year and could only produce 40,000. But the economy could only absorb 30,000, leaving some 10,000 teachers college graduates unemployed each year, he said.

A study commissioned by the Directorate General of Higher Education in 1994 found that the probability of a university- degree holder obtaining employment was 81.1 percent, and a non- degree holder 79.8 percent, Wardiman said.

The average waiting time before one found a job was 6.29 months for a university graduate and 5.52 months for a non-degree graduate.

The employment probability for those who studied social sciences and the humanities was half of those who studied natural and exact sciences, Wardiman said citing the 1994 study.

One of the strategies adopted in recent years has been to bring the educational sector closer to the needs of national development.

This is beside efforts to widen access to higher education and improve the quality of higher educational institutions.

Wardiman said university graduates currently accounted for a dismal 4 percent of the country's workforce.

Indonesia could only produce 250,000 fresh graduates each year. At this rate, it would take 25 years before those with college degrees accounted for 10 percent of the workforce, he said.

Indonesia was expanding the capacity of its higher educational institutions to bring the ratio of college graduates to 10 percent of the workforce by the year 2119.

State and private universities were now being revamped to give greater proportion to natural and exact sciences and less on social sciences to conform with actual needs, Wardiman said.

In the next 25 years, the ratio between exact and social sciences would be changed from 33:67 to 70:30 at state universities and from 25:75 to 40:60 at private universities.

The government hoped to introduce more non-degree programs offering shorter courses. For this purpose, the government would need to build 150 new polytechnic institutes in the next 25 years, he said.

The government was also giving universities greater autonomy in running their programs. For degree programs, some 60 percent of the curriculum would be determined by the government, and the remaining 40 percent would be up to each college.

Wardiman listed other changes being carried out that would strengthen Indonesia's higher educational institutions. They include:

* Streamlining the number of programs offered by universities, from 340 in 1995 to around 140. Graduates would be taught basic skills that would allow them to adapt through further training and education.

* Introducing more vocational programs in certain courses.

* Introducing coop education which would encourage industries to cooperate with higher educational institutions by providing apprenticeships to university students.

* Establishing job placement centers at colleges. In advanced countries, some 40 percent of college graduates found jobs through such centers, Wardiman said. (10/emb)