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any corporations and foundations have demonstrated their commitment to improving education in Indonesia through their respective corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives as part of their strategy for sustainability.

 A local unit of French energy giant PT Total E&P Indonesia, for instance, prepares highly qualified workforces by providing access to technical training in their areas for newly recruited employees and also by providing an opportunity for talented students to pursue higher education at home and overseas.

 Under a scholarship program, Total has assisted more than 4,300 students from various universities in Indonesia to pursue better education, according to borneomagazine.com.

 Total has also run other forms of educational collaboration, including the Bandung Institute of technology (ITB) '€“ Institut Francais du Petrole (IFP) Professional Master in Petroleum Engineering, launched in 2008.

 Apart from that, Total has also established a continuous program of sharing knowledge. The programs include an Employee Volunteer Sharing Program (EVSP), a Total Professeur Associes (TPA), and Total Day.

More than 89,000 residents living in the company'€™s operational site in East Kalimantan have received assistance in various areas, including education and research, from the company throughout 2014, according to Total'€™s eastern area operational division head Agus Suprijanto.

 Meanwhile, PT Bank Central Asia (BCA) TBk is also engaged in helping produce professionals in accounting by providing an opportunity for students from poor families who graduate from senior high schools (SMA) and senior vocation high schools (SMK) to pursue an education in accounting.

 The BCA non-degree accounting education programs (PPA), launched in 1996, are aimed at helping SMA and SMK graduates with high academic achievements who are unable to continue with their studies because of financial constraints. '€œWe see many young students who have potential, but do not have an opportunity to pursue further study because of financial limitations,'€ said BCA development and learning division head Lena Setiawati.

 She said that out of around 5,000 applicants, 135 are accepted to join the program each year.  '€œGraduates have a free choice to work at any company they like, but they will also be offered to work at the bank based on the need, with an educational status equal to an S1 graduate,'€ she said.

 Aside from companies, several foundations have also displayed they care about a need to enhance education in the country since having qualified manpower is essential for the future of the nation.

 Following the official inauguration of a fashion school, SMK NU Banat, Kudus in Central Java in March, the Djarum Foundation, in collaboration with PT Bank Sumitomo Mitsui Indonesia, invested Rp 4 billion in CSR funds in building a marine school in the same city.

 Djarum Foundation education program director Primadi H. Serad said that Japan-based Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) would finance 50 percent of the total maritime school'€™s building cost of Rp 4 billion.  

 He said that the CSR funds contributed by the Djarum Foundation are aimed at encouraging senior high school (SMA) students, or those from schools of an equal level, to acquire skills with salary standards above that commonly received by university graduates.

 '€œUnder the CSR program, we focus on developing several selected skill packages in job areas with high salaries, such as information technology, machines, fashion, the culinary field and the maritime sector,'€ Primadi was quoted by kanalsemarang.com as saying.

 Data at the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry has shown that maritime schools in Indonesia could only produce 5 percent of the 69,000 seafarers that the country needs and so the opportunity is big, according to the transportation ministry'€™s sub-maritime directorate head Weku Frederick.

Currently, maritime schools can be found in Semarang, Central Java, with its Politeknik Pelayaran, and the same school has a campus in Surabaya, East Java.

 A maritime school in Kudus is expected to produce human resources that best fit competency and meet national and international standard criteria. (JP)