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Govt to spend Rp 140 billion on 25,000 digital scholarships this year
The World Bank estimates a shortage of 9 million skilled and semiskilled workers in Indonesia between 2015 and 2030
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Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara takes a selfie with the first batch of Apple Academy graduates in BSD City in Banten. (Jakarta Post/JP/Norman Harsono)
T
he Communications and Information Ministry will spend least Rp 140 billion (US$98.3 million) on this year's digital talent scholarship program that will be open for 25,000 applicants.
With the help of tech giants like Google, Cisco and Microsoft, the scholarships will equip participants under 29 years old across 20 provinces with various skills, including in cybersecurity, cloud computing, coding and digital entrepreneurship.
Depending on the applicants' preferences and educational backgrounds, the classes will range from two weeks to two months with at least 11,000 online and 14,000 in classroom scholarships.
Afterward, graduates can seek internships at over 2,600 companies that could later provide employment opportunities.
“Various industries need a huge amount of digital technicians yet we have a shortage of manpower. So this is an initiative to reduce [the deficit],” Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara said at a public discussion on Thursday.
He quoted 2018 data from the McKinsey Global Institute and World Bank that projected a shortage of 9 million skilled and semiskilled workers in Indonesia between 2015 and 2030.
There are also challenges in ensuring workers receive the right level of education, with fewer than 10 percent of Indonesia’s 250 million people having university-level education, based on Statistics Indonesia's 2015 national labor force survey.
