Skilled workers to flood Indonesia
Skilled workers to flood Indonesia
JAKARTA (JP): A manpower expert warned Indonesians on Tuesday
to emotionally prepare for throngs of skilled foreign workers
once the Asian Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) takes effect in 2003.
"Since we are fighting a fierce competition in a free trade
era, many foreign workers will throng and fill in jobs here.
"We cannot get angry with them because we do not have enough
skilled people to fill all the positions," Payaman Simanjuntak, a
senior adviser at the Manpower Ministry, said.
Payaman was addressing a national seminar on Indonesia's human
resources quality and education toward the implementation of
AFTA, held by private Kertanegara University.
Payaman's opinion was shared by labor activist Muchtar
Pakpahan who addressed the same seminar.
"However, massive employment of foreign workers here would
certainly add to the number of unemployed Indonesians," Muchtar
said.
Indonesian people's unreadiness for AFTA was initially
revealed by education expert, Winarno Surakhmad.
"We are fighting a losing battle here. Do not talk about our
readiness to face AFTA. We're already far behind our Asian
comrades," Winarno, former rector of Jakarta Teachers Training
Institute (IKIP Jakarta), said.
He blamed the poor skills and inadequate knowledge of
Indonesians on the country's corrupted education system, inferior
teachers and outdated curriculum.
"For dozens of years, the curriculum from elementary through
university has not matched with the requirements of the jobs.
"Thousands of university graduates ended up jobless," he said,
adding that teacher quality is also declining.
Payaman said those entering IKIP to become teachers were
mostly students who were rejected at other schools.
"And once they become teachers or lecturers, they are
underpaid and are busy moonlighting to earn a living," he said.
The seminar also featured chief of sea exploration training
and education Soen'an H. Poernomo and businessmen Benny Sutrisno
and Setiawan Djodi.
Most of the speakers pointed at poor English and computer
illiteracy among Indonesian students and prospective employees as
a major shortcoming in facing the globalization era.
"We are only two years and three months away from AFTA and
it's impossible for us to catch up," Benny Sutrisno, president
director of textile firm PT APAC Centertex Corp. Tbk, said.
Meanwhile, Payaman blamed Indonesians' poor skills on their
minimum education period of only 6.5 years.
"In other Asian countries, the period reaches at least 10 to
12 years," he said.
The Indonesian human resources quality index ranks 105 out of
174 countries in the world, Payaman said.
"We are also facing a problem of massive unemployment with
about 36 million jobless people out of some 200 million
population, including new graduates and people losing jobs due to
the economic crisis," he added.
Indications of the declining education and human resources
quality was also shown by the fact that top local universities
were among the lowest ranking in Asia.
Asiaweek in its June 30 report on Asia's best universities or
multi-disciplined schools showed that only three local
universities made the list of 77 schools, with the University of
Indonesia (UI) ranked 61, Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University
(UGM) at 68 and Semarang-based Diponegoro University at 73.
Kertanegara University rector Harry Ganda Asi revealed even a
more pitiful fact.
"This year we tried to make the school more relevant by
opening a class for textiles but only one student registered; and
none has applied for the maritime class. This shows that the
people here are not used to specialization," Harry said, adding
that his university has conducted job training and signed
contracts with 15 established companies to channel students to
them.
Seamen
Regarding the sluggish effort to cope with manpower readiness,
sea expert Soen'an H. Poernomo cited the fact that most of the
60,000 seamen in the country have not obtained the Standard of
Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW) and
STCW-F (STCW for Fishing Vessel Personnel).
"Most of our seamen have only traditional skills. They will
face unemployment as the International Maritime Organization
instituted such requirements," Poernomo said.
Meanwhile, Muchtar Pakpahan hammered at the poor performance
of the ministries of manpower and education, as well as labor
unions for the past four decades of sloth.
"They did nothing for more than 40 years. We had no choice but
to accept the situation. Now people have to improve themselves if
they want to compete with market demands.
"It is up to President Abdurrahman and Vice President Megawati
to lead the way. It seems that our future is not a pretty
picture," he said. (edt)