Madura, East Java – Manpower Minister Muhaimin Iskandar is calling on the education sector to equip students with skills that will help them in the job market.
Speaking during a working visit to Bangkalan on the island of Madura, East Java, over the weekend, the minister said the disconnect between the education offered by public schools and pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) and the job market "is a general problem found almost across the country."
As a result, he said, the education system was unable to produce the high-caliber workers key to the nation's economic growth.
The Manpower and Transmigration Ministry's information center had told the Jakarta Globe that its data showed that some job openings were fought over by multiple candidates, while others receive no applications at all.
Intellectual unemployment, or joblessness among those with a university degree, reached 1.2 million last year, a new high, up from 740,000 in 2007 and 473,000 in 2006, according to data published by a national working unit of the Central Statistics Agency (BPS).
Even though less then 3 percent of Indonesians possess a bachelor's or higher degree, the number of university graduates continues to exceed the demand of the work force.
In 2008, 12.6 percent of university graduates were unemployed, much higher than the country's overall unemployment rate, according to data from the BPS.
"It also happens in pesantrens," Muhaimin said. "Once I visited a big pesantren with 10,000 students. But out of them only around 1,000 became clerics. What has happened with the rest?"
He said pesantrens and other public schools ideally should teach additional skill lessons so that students were better able to find jobs.
He said another problem hindering employment was the fact that several economic sectors were open to foreign workers. "This is strange. While we are still needing jobs for our people, foreigners are filling the vacancies," he said.
Muhaimin said to overcome the problem, the younger generation must study hard, while schools have to synchronize their curriculum with the demands of a modern job market.
"The government must also develop the community through providing community-based training programs to make the people prepared to meet future economic growth," he said.
He said small- and medium-sized businesses would be crucial to reducing high unemployment. "Entrepreneurship has become a priority because a lot of people have not been absorbed, with the unemployment rate reaching up to 7.41 percent of the total workforce in the country, or 8.59 million people," he said.
He added that the problem also stemmed from economic growth not meeting its potential and a dysfunctional job market. (Antara, JG)