TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
As businesses automate, government struggles with skill training
The government seems out of breath in running its vocation training centers as a shortage of funds and instructors staunches progress on a nationwide upskilling drive to prevent job losses from automation.
Change Size
Workers attend a Japanese language class at the government's skill training center in Bekasi in this file picture. (Kompas)
The government seems out of breath in running its vocation training centers as a shortage of funds and instructors staunches progress on a nationwide upskilling drive to prevent job losses from automation.
The Manpower Ministry’s director general for training and productivity supervision, Satrio Bambang Lelono, said Monday that only half of its 305 skill training centers (BLKs), which teach modules ranging from coding to cooking and from foreign languages to engineering, were considered to be in “good” shape.
A lack of instructors was the primary reason for others being deemed mediocre or poor, as fewer than 3,000 instructors at state-run and regional BLKs in 2019 were not even half of the 8,000 instructors needed.
“It’s tremendously difficult to fill [vacant posts] with civil servants,” said Satrio, who once managed a BLK in Serang, Banten. The situation was much worse in the past, however. Manpower Ministry data show that only a fifth of 276 province-run centers were deemed in “good” condition in 2016.
The nationwide training program is seen as necessary to prepare the country’s workforce for a changing job market as employers have been complaining about a yawning skills gap in Indonesia. Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) will only speed up the automation trend and jeopardize jobs security in the country.
Read also: /news/2019/09/15/120-million-workers-need-reskilling-as-result-of-automation-study.html" target="_blank">120 million workers need reskilling as result of automation: Study
As AI-enabled automation increases, as many as 120 million workers in the world’s 12 largest economies, including Indonesia, may need to participate in reskilling programs in the next three years, according to a recent study released by IBM’s Institute for Business Value.
