Getting Indonesia
to work
Nigel Carpenter is a
serious guy involved in important work. He’s
also getting a tad frustrated.
For the past three years
the Australian has been trying to repair Indonesia’s much troubled technical
and vocational education training (TVET) system as it heads into an age of new
needs.
In one lane is Australian
expertise, in the other are labor upskilling orders delivered by President Joko
Widodo who seems to be forever pushing the pedal. Both heading in the same direction, though at
different speeds.
Should be a clean run.
Instead Carpenter has been
bumping down a freeway strewn with potholes.
Not all have been created by political indifference and public-service incompetence.
“One of the problems
facing Australians trying to get along with Indonesians is a failure to
understand the culture and respond with flexibility,” he said.
“I turned up at one of the
negotiations for the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic
Partnership Agreement (IA-CEPA) to find all the Indonesians outside talking in
clusters. The Australians were gazing at
empty chairs waiting for the discussions to start. They already had.”
The Chief Executive
Officer for the Australian Non-Government Organization Sustainable Skills has been urging Australian executives to rethink
their attitudes towards their giant neighbor so they can work to modernize the
Republic’s workforce.
“It’s been a frustrating
experience meeting with Australian training providers,” Carpenter said. “Although we haven’t had rejections and
there’s continued interest, we haven’t been able to have a business planning
meeting.”
Despite this
underwhelming enthusiasm from his homeland colleagues, Carpenter has found interest
in Java, though won’t name names.
“To establish a training
center under Indonesian law we need a local partner who must have a 32 per cent
share,” he said. “Although this partner is involved in education they are not a
typical provider of education like a university or polytechnic.
“We don’t want an
existing provider because we’ll inherit their culture and ways of doing things;
we think that’s one of the issues which has caused problems for Australian
training providers who’ve entered the Indonesian market.
“We want to establish a
new business targeting a market which is not currently being met in Indonesia: High
quality TVET with strong industry links.
“We’ll need up to AUD 1
million (Rp 9.6 billion) to establish the first training center and make it
cash flow positive in about three to four years. Once we can demonstrate it’s
working successfully we will start expanding.
“The idea is to bring
Australian trainers to train the Indonesian trainers and develop the curricula.
It’s not possible to transplant Australian TVET curricula into Indonesia, it
won’t work. The needs are different.
“This is a uniquely
Indonesian plan based on the challenges and opportunities Indonesia
presents. Assuming all goes well we could start mid-2020.”
Sustainable Skills is a non-profit industry-backed agency. It had been working in Africa with mining
companies and governments to develop workforce training systems, then turned to
Indonesia
when the President sounded the alarm about industry labor deficiencies.
The World Bank forecasts Indonesia’s
economy will grow by 5.2 percent in 2020: ‘This projection is supported by
private consumption, which is expected to continue to accelerate as inflation
remains low and labor markets strong.’
With almost half the
population under 30, the bank believes Indonesia is on track to be the world’s
seventh largest economy by 2030.
But there’s a catch – who’s
going to keep the economic engine humming when Widodo says 58 million skilled
workers will be needed within 12 years? Without a pool of nimble-minded young
women and men trained in the latest technologies, the expected and wanted surge
will slump.
Work will be for those
with the know-how to design, develop, assemble, adapt and repair the software
and hardware which is rapidly displacing routine tasks. This challenge is
international. As Australian economists
Andrew Charlton and Jim Chalmers have written:
‘Future governments will
have to deal with a world in which artificial intelligence and automation will
creep into every occupation, from bricklayer to teacher. We, in turn, will need
to prepare for a working life that even a few years ago was unthinkable.’
Widodo has been badgering
his increasingly fretful officials to find solutions. They’re colliding with attitudes
stoutly built in a pre-digital age. Some
staffers are risking reputations by looking abroad for ideas at a time when
national pride tinged with xenophobia is a powerful driver of policy.
After almost ten years of
stop-start discussions the Indonesia Australia –Comprehensive Economic Partnership
Agreement free trade deal is just awaiting parliamentary ratification in Indonesia.
It includes clauses
allowing Australian universities to open branch campuses in the Archipelago –
but Indonesia
wants the less prestigious but more necessary vocational colleges.
The Australians don’t have
the field to themselves. German
education providers have also been active in the Republic and are believed to
have already signed agreements for hospitality training.
Adding to the complexities
and Carpenter’s hassles is a shake-up in the new Indonesia Maju (advance)
Cabinet announced in October by the President.
The former Ministry of
Research, Technology and Higher Education has been split, with higher education
returning to the Ministry of Education and Culture.
This is headed by the Go-Jek
transportation network entrepreneur Nadiem Makarim, 34, who has no known
experience of running a government bureaucracy.
That’s likely to create difficulties and take time to settle roles and
directions.
However for Carpenter the
political changes may bring the breakthrough.
The Harvard-educated Minister should be better placed than his academic
predecessors to understand the crisis facing the corporate world and think
laterally to find solutions.
He also speaks the
business-needs language that so far seems to bemuse securely tenured government
workers. Carpenter is equally fluent.
First published in Indonesian Expat, 18 December 2019
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