Wardiman concerned over educational mismatch
Wardiman concerned over educational mismatch
JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Education and Culture Wardiman Djojonegoro says only 60 percent of the 200,000 university students that graduate each year find employment related to their studies.
The trend needs to be corrected and the number of graduates working in relevant jobs increased up to 90 percent, he told a meeting of university administrators here Sunday. Only at such a level can Indonesia catch up in development sectors where it lags at present, he was quoted by the Antara news agency as saying.
"College graduates are 'effective' if they work in fields which are in line with their studies," he said. "For example, graduates of teaching colleges or schools of agriculture who work as journalists are 'ineffective'".
He told the college administrators that it is their homework to help graduates find jobs in line with their fields of study.
Wardiman's statement echoed similar observations voiced recently. In 1994, for instance, 98 percent of the School of Agriculture graduates from the Bogor Institute of Agriculture took such white collar jobs as managers, staff organizers, educators, lecturers and as research staff.
A school administrator said that, luckily, 80 percent of the graduates still work in the agribusiness field, 25 percent of which work in the sub-system of production. The other 20 percent work in non-agricultural sectors, including industry, banking, finance, journalism, trade and services.
The tendency also exists in the IPB schools of fishery, veterinary, forestry, mathematics and natural science, animal husbandry, agriculture technology and agriculture polytechnic.
Wardiman said that the college administrators need to implement the government's concept of "link and match" in their curriculums in order to prepare their graduates for the demands of the working world.
Wardiman also used the occasion to counter criticism of the quality of local education programs.
"The messages of those critics are often unsuitable for the themes of our education development, which are the improvement of quality and relevance of our education," he said.
"There are colleges that just want to open more new programs, rather than improve the quality of existing programs," he said.
He said new programs need to be developed only if there are real demands for them, and not because the universities in question "feel" they are able to organize them.
The colleges should also cooperate with the Directorate for Higher Education at the Ministry of Education in preparing the courses, he said. (swe)