RI, Germany plan training project

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia and Germany are considering possible cooperation on a training project designed to meet the demand for skills required in local industries.

The project, the Indonesian-German Institute (IGI), would be a cooperation between the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas) and the government-owned German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ).

The teaching methods under consideration are based on the concept of a job and project oriented learning process in a curriculum set out according to company demands.

Gunawan Sumodiningrat, the deputy for economic affairs at Bappenas, said the project had first been discussed in 1995, well before the economic crisis.

When asked if the project would give priority to those who had recently lost their jobs, A. Machrany, the Bappenas official in charge of the program, said that would be determined at later date.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) predicted earlier this month that 5.4 million people would lose their jobs by the end of the year.

Gunawan said the project had no plans to subsidize people with capital, but that training should be thought off as an "indirect subsidy to human resources."

The project was introduced in a workshop entitled Strategic Human Resources Development, Industrialization and the Future Needs of Small and Medium Enterprises. The workshop opened on Tuesday and runs until Friday.

The teaching methods promote a mixture of theory and practical experience by working on company-related projects in an emulated company or factory environment, according to Norbert Meyer from the German Occupational Promotion Center.

Machrany said the German government planned to fund the project with a soft loan of 25 million Deutschemarks (US$14.5 million).

The Indonesian government is obliged to provide the project with the necessary land and buildings, which Machrany said would most likely be in Serpong, West Java. Serpong is home to the Center for Technology Research, an institute under the State Ministry of Research and Technology.

However, GTZ program director Manfred Diehl said in his opening address that ongoing negotiations would determine whether or not the project was eventually implemented.

Diehl also said the workshop would include discussion of whether the concept of the project was applicable to the context of Indonesian industrialization, "and the needs and requirements of companies in Indonesia." (01)