Old educational problems never die

JAKARTA (JP): While Indonesia badly needs skilled workers to enter the competitive global market, the country's education system is still grappling with basic old problems, a well-placed official conceded yesterday.

Few truly qualified teachers and a lack of relevance between classroom theories and the real world of work remain a major problem, said Rahardi Ramelan, deputy chairperson of the National Development Planning Board.

There is no way universities can produce qualified graduates unless the basic problems are solved, Rahardi said when addressing a seminar on education.

Unfortunately, he said, the problem is aggravated by the lack of facilities necessary to improve the learning-teaching process.

"The effort to improve the quality of university lecturers should become the highest priority," Rahardi told education experts participating in the two-day seminar titled The Management of Higher Education: Anticipation of the Year 2020.

Quoting 1995 statistics, Rahardi said that of the 46,735 full- time lecturers at state universities, only 13,826, or 29.6 percent, of them have doctorates.

"Most lecturers, or 70.4 percent of them, only graduated from undergraduate programs," Rahardi said in the seminar co-organized by Trisakti University, Indiana University and Malay University.

Rahardi said Indonesia is facing a serious problem resulting from the oversupply of university graduates because the higher education system does not produce enough graduates with skills demanded by the business sector.

Statistics released in 1994 revealed there were 309,150 unemployed university graduates, while in 1980 the number stood at 7,540.

"The unemployment rate among university graduates is high," Rahardi said.

Furthermore, he said, universities, especially state ones, need to raise funds to finance operations without ignoring their social functions.

"Universities should not financially burden students to overcome their financial problems," Rahardi said. He suggested universities establish partnerships with private businesses to solve their financial problems.

"Unfortunately, the tradition to establish partnerships between universities and the private sector is not yet common here," Rahardi said.

In addition to education, universities should conduct research, both for scientific purposes and as a link to industrial sector, he added. (ste)