Minister: Education Yet To Match Work Field

Yoyakarta, Dec 26 (ANTARA) - Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar said that gap still existed between the country`s education system and the work field. "As a manpower minister, I found the fact that the current education curriculum has not yet met the requirements needed by the work field and market," the minister said here on Thursday. He said that to remove the gap, the curriculum should be improved so that education and work field would have a link which matched the work field requirements. The system can be changed and adjusted to the work field by collecting data as input from the ministry of manpower, he said. "It is quite easy because what remains to be done is to see data at the manpower ministry on work opportunities. We can measure the work competence standards needed in the fields," the minister added. He hoped that formal educational institutions in the future would not produce high educational institution graduates who were not able to be self-reliant. It should not also happen that educational institutions only produce certificate-oriented graduates because it is a fact now that many graduates were not able to get jobs. Muhaimin said that he would discuss the matter with the education minister to change the system and to significantly improve the links between education and the work field. "I will build a link and match system with the education minister so that the education system could be changed significantly," he said. The manpower minister said that his ministry continued to develop entrepreneurship and to create productive labour-intensive centers in villages. He said his ministry had three main sectors where it would build labour-intensive centers, namely the industry, services and trade sectors.