RI lacks skilled workforce in the advertising industry

RI lacks skilled workforce in the advertising industry

JAKARTA (JP): Education has become the main focus of government efforts in raising the quality of human resources in this country. Soon after stepping into office, our present Minister of Education and Culture, Prof. Wardiman Djojonegoro, introduced the concept of "link and match" between educational institutions and workplaces to ensure that graduates will be well equipped with the right skills and therefore able to find employment the moment they enter the workforce.

This is a pragmatic view on education, indeed. But the outcome has yet to be seen.

Compared to many countries in the region, Indonesia is unfortunately noted for the low quality of its human resources. This is also true in the advertising sector.

In the advertising industry, a skilled workforce is felt to be in gross shortage, despite the fact that more institutions of higher learning are offering majors in advertising.

One of the problems, as Alfonso -- account director of Inter Admark -- sees it, lies in the curricula. Although the instructors are practitioners, they are bound by the guidelines specified by the curricula. The best they can do is share their personal experiences to supplement the theoretical discourses. Most universities offer advertising courses only as a study program.

Another problem with formal advertising education stems from the limited pool of experts in the field that can teach the courses in the discipline. At universities in and surrounding Jakarta, for instance, it is still possible to ask practitioners to give lecturers on advertising. Although the stipends may not be very large, a lot of busy practitioners are still willing to do this, partly to keep their relationship with the academic world, and partly to do "talent scouting". While teaching, they keep their eyes open for potential talents.

In Jakarta it is possible to borrow from the expertise of advertising professionals and use them as teachers because most major advertising agencies are headquartered in the capital. Outside of the capital city, however, it becomes impossible to borrow professionals to teach. Consequently no universities outside of Jakarta offer advertising courses.

Major

At the University of Indonesia, advertising has been offered as a major for sometime. Quite a few high school graduates try to get into the program, and thus enrollment has been the largest among the four majors within its School of Communication. A lot of students believe that if they take up advertising they will have no problem finding a job after graduation.

And they are right. According to Mr. Lukman, a lecturer at the School of Communication of the University of Indonesia, many of the fourth and fifth year students are already working for agencies. Frequently, this interferes with their final assignment, which is writing a thesis.

But, once they graduate, they have leverage. Not only do they have a certificate from a leading university, they also have gained pretty extensive experience working for an ad agency.

The situation is a little bit different when a graduate from the department of graphic design is recruited.

Tri Sakti university has 1,500 students in its graphic design course at the moment, while the Jakarta Art Institute, sue to a lack of facilities, has only 25 students studying in this field.

Isa Nidal of Tri Sakti University says that quite a few of that institution's students get part-time work in the sector well before they graduate.

The difference between the advertising and design students is sized up by Zainal. "Usually, it takes us three to four years to feel confident enough to let these (design) graduates handle responsibility," he said.

"Keep in mind that advertising is an expensive undertaking, and therefore we cannot take too much risk in handling it."

But there are also design graduates who move forward at a faster pace. These are the cream of the crop, who have strong motivation and the drive to advance.

Alfonso supports this view. He also believes that it usually takes three to four years for strongly motivated fresh university design graduates to really comprehend the inner workings of the advertising world. He went on by saying that, in the advertising agencies, it may not make any difference what the university background of the recruit is.

"We have graduates from the Bogor Agriculture Institute doing marketing research in our research department," he said.

It seems that the reason they recruit university graduates from other backgrounds is that they have proven that they have a certain level of competence.

"No matter what their background is, we always have to give them training before they can get involved in our projects," Alfonso added. (zia)