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poor skills and inadequate knowledge of Indonesians on the country's corrupted education system, inferior teachers and outdated curriculum.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)