Sunday, 10 August 2014

COMPETENCE OF WORKERS IN THE INDUSTRIAL SECTOR STILL LOW


In facing the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) 2015, Indonesia should prepare itself in various aspects and fields in order to compete and be the main actor in the free market among ASEAN countries. The fundamental thing that should be prepared by the government is competent, reliable and skilled human resources.

The government through the Ministry of Industry will continue to increase human resources in the industry field in order to compete, even be the main player in AEC. Indonesia should not only be a spectator or target market of industries of other countries because it is considered potential as the most populous among the other ASEAN countries, so that it becomes a challenges for Indonesia.

Ansari Bukhari, Secretary General of the Ministry of Industry, in Jakarta, on Wednesday (July 2), admitted that the competence of the workforce in the industry sector is still low because the educational background is equal to junior high school or lower than that, with the percentage of 60.77%. In fact, he said, the level of labor productivity in Indonesia, which is calculated based on the gross domestic product (GDP) per worker, is still very low.

According to him, labor productivity in Indonesia is USD 9,500 per worker per year, and this figure is still far below three ASEAN countries, namely Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. In fact, labor productivity level in Indonesia is still below the average of ASEAN countries which USD 10,700 per worker per year. “this condition is our concern considering that implementation of AEC at the end of 2015, so the labor market in ASEAN will be open to all Southeast Asian countries”. Ansari said.

Ansari admitted that this must be anticipated by the government by providing integrated training so that they can develop and so that productivity can be increased. The condition is also a focus of attention of the government in facing AEC 2015, because at that time the labor market will be open to all ASEAN countries, so that improvement should necessarily be done in order to compete with workers from other countries.

To that end, he said, the Ministry of industry will do some anticipations, one of them is by setting up and developing community collage (Akademi Komunitas) within the Ministry of industry in order to meet the needs for workforce in the industrial sector. Another important thing to consider in organizing the industrial community is by facilitating the placement of graduates in industrial companies. This needs to be done to transfer knowledge and use technology so that industry workers can have good skill and can use the technology to support their performance that will have an impact on productivity increase.

For that purpose, Ansari said recently that the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Education and Culture have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the establishment and development of community college for the development of competent human resources in the industrial sector. He explained that in Law No. 3/2014 on Industry, there are 14 chapters which mandate the need for the development of competent human resources in the industrial sector.

Therefore, he said, the government is preparing a regulation on the implementation of development of industrial workforce, among other, through competency-based vocational education, industrial training, apprenticeship, and the application of a competency certification for industrial workforce.

The MoU mentioned several tasks of the, Ministry of Industry, among others, to facilitate the development of community college as a local advantage of a region to community college graduates in the Ministry of Industry in industrial companies. While, one of the tasks of the Ministry of Education and Culture is to foster academic training on the organization of community college within the Ministry of Industry. (E)

Business News - July 4, 2014

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