Private sector told to fund vocational training centers

PALEMBANG, South Sumatra (JP): The private sector must help fund new vocational training centers, because it will benefit not only those trained but the private businesses themselves, Minister of Manpower Abdul Latief says.

Latief says the government is currently revamping the various existing vocational training centers, all still government funded, so that they could eventually be financial independent.

The low productivity of Indonesian workers is partly caused by the absence or lack of effective industrial training programs for the workers, he said in a keynote address to a seminar by the Association of Economists (ISEI) here yesterday.

Latief said the private sector is also expected to join the industrial apprenticeship program which is being launched by the government at the technical school level.

He appealed to the private sector to work closely with the government to ensure that the schemes could provide workers with skills that are useful to the working world.

He said that a number of the government vocational training centers in West Java, East Java and North Sumatra are already self-financing.

Middle-sized and large companies, he said, are encouraged to establish their own training centers.

In return, the government is currently considering various fiscal and monetary incentives for companies that participate in the industrial training programs.

He told the seminar participants that Indonesia has no alternative but to improve the professionalism of its human resources to catch up with newly-industrialized countries.

"Indonesia will be far lagging behind Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan unless it begins to revamp its training program to create professional human resources and develop competitive business and industry in the country," he said.

Latief said better training schemes are also necessary at managerial levels because Indonesia still has to rely on expatriates to fill some managerial posts.

"We need to `Indonesianize' these positions," he said.

The minister spelled out that in the next 15 years, Indonesia needs at least 12 million professionals and 90 million semi- skilled workers to take it through the industrialization process. At present, Indonesia only has around 1.5 million professionals and 49 million semi-skilled workers. (rms)