Indonesia’s Vocational Education and Training Summit
The Skills Consulting Group team were recently in Jakarta, taking part in the inaugural Indonesia Vocational Education and Training Summit (IVETS).
From the outset, it was clear that the Indonesian economy is in full acceleration and expansion mode, with the expansion of consistent, quality vocational education being crucial to boost job creation and support higher productivity, competitiveness and growth.
Currently, Indonesia has 274 polytechnics with 721,000 students and plans to increase this to an incredible 500 polytechnics and 2,750,000 students by 2024. With 17,000 islands and 267 million people, blended learning is essential as face-to-face training is not always possible.
Like most emerging markets however, the vocational training industry in Indonesia has a number of opportunities for improvement. These include building more positive relationships between industry and training providers, creating more flexible multidisciplinary qualifications and developing more global standards.
To solve this, the Indonesian Government began looking into solutions to help equip the Vocational Education system for success and ensure future labour supply and economic growth.
The topics of discussion on the Government’s agenda included:
- Tax concessions for industry to invest in on-job training,
- Developing ongoing career advice and planning for students
- Including soft skills in training
- Creating flexible, multidisciplinary qualifications
- The potential for vocational degrees
- Skills to labour market synergy
- Learning integrated work, supplemented with a qualification,
- Advanced learning methods
- Continuous updating of international standards.
For Skills Consulting Group, we have seen similar issues throughout the developing world. There is a need to shift industry’s perception of vocational training and the value it can bring – which is no easy task. Neither is overhauling an entire system and developing new training standards and quality assurance.
Skills Consulting Group has first-hand experience working with clients to do just that and has seen the tremendous impact it’s had on economies, as well as the positive recognition that has developed in the global market as a result.