Number of jobless college graduate rising: Wardiman

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)