Vocational education must provide students with life skills

A. Chaedar Alwasilah, Dean, Faculty of Language and Arts Education, Indonesian University of Education (UPI), Bandung, West Java

The issue of teaching life skills has recently drawn the attention of educators. The Kompas daily (Jan. 30), for example, quoted the Director for Vocational Education Gatot Hari Priowirjanto as saying that around 60 percent of high school graduates need life skills, and funds have been allocated for various programs teaching life skills.

This issue has been a major problem in our education. Many school early-leavers and even high school graduates who do not go on to college find themselves incompetent and unqualified to secure a decent job. Obviously the schools -- even vocational schools -- throughout the country have not provided students with competitive life skills. It is high time for education planners in this country to critically redefine vocational education in a comprehensive way, given that labor and vocational problems are now largely dependent on global forces. The thorny problem of Indonesian workers who were forced to leave their livelihood in Malaysia, for example, is one glaring example.

Scholars propose that "integrative life planning" bring together many aspects of people's lives, their communities, and the larger society. Thus, among others, pluralism, spirituality, and the community at large are determining variables in defining policies on vocational education and vocational training.

In the Indonesian context, vocational planning should first accommodate the changing global context. Ours has now become a global village, so that trainees and vocational school students should be exposed to various jobs in the local and global setting.

It is public knowledge that Indonesian workers in the Middle East, for example, are unable to compete with, say those from the Philippines. Less skilled, Indonesians are forced to do unskilled work. Foreign language skills seem to be a major ability lacking among Indonesian workers.

Considering the limited opportunities in the job market available at home, the vocational school curricular should incorporate skills to enable students to work overseas. This belated global orientation is a must and should be translated into school subjects and skills demanded in the global market -- such as midwifery and international communication services, computer and language skills; specifically English and Arabic for vocational purposes.

Second, vocational planning should weave lives into a meaningful whole. Traditionally it is believed that people need to work to live. However, work alone cannot provide us with all that we want. Instead, we want a balance between work and other life functions. Students should be advised to prioritize work according to their unique individual, family, work, and community needs and values.

The inborn aptitude for business and entrepreneurship of people from Tasikmalaya, West Java and Padang, West Sumatra, for example, has been overlooked. This should be reason enough to establish high schools in the area for entrepreneurship. The same thing should also apply to other regions in the country.

Third, vocational planning should connect family and work. Much more attention should be paid to potential conflicts between family and work. Career professionals need to be aware of these conflicts. Some parents often have to agree with their children being employed in a sector that would otherwise be avoided.

Getting a job is the beginning of work-family conflicts. Modern vocational schools need to establish a database of employment records of students' families.

Fourth, vocational planning should value pluralism and inclusivity. As a nation with ethnic, racial, religious, and geographic diversity, we need an education system that promotes an understanding of differences.

Diverse training in vocational programs, multicultural counseling courses in college, and political action for democratization represent a constructive response to the fragile and breakable interethnic and racial relations facing Indonesian society.

It is heartening to know that many non-Muslim owned supermarkets now employ promotion staff wearing the jilbab or headscarves. Such an attitude should be developed in the early stages of education among students by allowing students, for example, to retain their religious and ethnic identities in school.

Fifth, vocational planning should explore spirituality and life purposes. Spirituality is central to human beings, an aspect much neglected by experts in career development.

Under the New Order, attending to religious obligations during office hours such as daily prayers for Muslims was tacitly discouraged. Employees had to sneak around to observe the prayers with a guilty feeling.

Expatriates and foreign business circles in Indonesia should have an informed awareness of the sense of spirituality here. Providing Muslim employees with a spacious corner, say 16 square meters, to perform daily prayers will assure them that their spiritual needs are attended to, and thus reinvigorate their commitment to their work.

Sixth, vocational planning should manage personal transitions and organizational changes. The most salient characteristic of globalization is change. Employees should develop an informed awareness of potential organizational change at the workplace and thus should be taught how to manage the process. Knowing and observing what is going on in other companies or non-business institutions is a strategy to develop such awareness.

Organizational changes will also affect individual relationships, career development, and values in general. Thus employees in this global era should be trained to manage change or, even better, to be an agent of change.

Hence, field trips to and apprenticeships at different workplaces should be part of the curricular, especially in vocational schools. Different companies develop their own company culture, and students should be made familiar with those cultures to prepare them to successfully manage organizational change.

The above guidelines are a translation of the modern approach to career development. Vocational schooling and vocational training for graduates need to be redefined in a comprehensive and interdisciplinary way. Various dimensions of life are pieces that when put together make a whole, and must be taken into consideration.