Vocational schools struggle to be come more professional

Vocational education tries to bring the education system in line with the changing needs of industry and commerce. Vocational schools are expected to yield professional, highly skilled individuals who will meet the demands of rapidly changing workplaces. Such expectations are proving difficult to achieve. In conjunction with National Education Day, which falls today, The Jakarta Post's Rita A. Widiadana exposes problems facing vocational training.

JAKARTA (JP): Several students are busy learning how to write business letters using typewriters in the workshop of an economics high school in West Jakarta.

The atmosphere in the room reminds one of a situation at a village district office: sounds of old typewriters, piles of paper and antiquated office furniture.

Besides typing, students are taught subjects ranging from conventional bookkeeping, administration, English and general subjects.

After graduating, the students are expected to enter the workforce. But here lies the problem.

How can these students gain a place in an employment world where most offices are equipped with high-tech machines, such as the computers, teleconferencing systems and other sophisticated office tools?

To make matters worse, modern businesses no longer use conventional bookkeeping methods, replacing them with more appropriate and complex accounting and financial systems.

This is only one illustration of a vocational school unable to keep pace with rapid technological changes; the school fails to meet the demand of the industrial world for skilled human resources.

Private technical high school Bunda Kandung is lucky to have well-equipped training centers and workshops with high-tech machines, a chemistry laboratory, computer centers, a well- managed library and other facilities.

School teacher Adam Maik said his students are taught academic and practical work in order to adjust them to the realities of the employment market.

Students are required to follow apprenticeship programs in related industries. "We hope our graduates are ready to fit into their related work field," Adam said.

There are thousands of vocational schools focusing on various subject matters including technical schools, economics, housekeeping, health, food and nutrition, agriculture, textile and designs, craftsmen, hotel and tourism and aviation.

In greater Jakarta alone, there are 340 economics schools, 110 technical schools and 25 tourism and hotel schools. Each school has between 100 and 1,000 students.

Ideally, vocational school graduates would annually provide thousands of new workers to their related industry. The fact is, most of them can not meet real world working requirements.

Noted educator Father J. Drost said at a recent seminar that vocational schools play very important roles in the education and industrial sector, providing they are managed professionally.

Statistics show only 1.5 percent of high school graduates are able to continue their studies at higher learning institutions. In universities, institutes, and other high-level education institutions, the number of dropouts has reached an alarming 80 percent.

"Ideally, vocational schools accommodate students who are not able to continue studies at higher levels and produce a skillful workforce," he said.

There are some crucial problems facing vocational education: inflexible and inapplicable curriculums, high-cost operations and the wide gap between schools and industry.

A closer relation of schools with industry is preserved in the l994 National Curriculum, which requires the collaboration between local businesses and all vocational schools.

Then Minister of Education and Culture Fuad Hassan began a campaign to establish a strong relation between the business community and schools. His successor, Wardiman Djojonegoro, continued to popularize the "link and match" slogan.

Chairman of the Arts and Design Department of the National Vocational School Council Harry Darsono, reiterated that all slogans and efforts must be continually revised and followed up.

"It is not enough to only produce rhetoric. We need prompt action to improve the quality of vocational education in the country."

Curriculums must be reformed and training systems remodeled to fit new situations.

To acquire the skills needed for working with the new technology, training and retraining throughout working life is now held to be essential for everybody.

Vocational schools should also focus on improving overall skills, including negotiation, coping skills, decision-making, critical thinking, interrelationships and communication.

Work experience (for both teachers and students) was expanded along with the schools' links with industry. Vocational know-how is encouraged in order that students may start their own businesses.

Harry said the government must be adaptive and responsive to the rapid changes in society and the world of work.

"There are many businessmen eager to lend support to help these students gain more fulfilling work experience, but the government should also work to make that happen," he said.

People must change their perceptions toward vocational schools. "People feel less prestigious if they enroll their kids at these schools because they cannot gain university diplomas," he said.

It is their choice to have children who are unemployed university graduates or young adults who receive vocational training and go on to obtain a fulfilling job and a promising career.