"Under AEC , the customs office would lose its role. Foreign goods would freely enter the domestic market. President Jokowi (Joko Widodo) was right when reminding the Education and Culture and Research Ministers to accelerate human resource development," Professor DR. Elfindri from the Andalas University has said.
The impact of the AEC agreement is extensive. Even foreign workers would be free to find jobs in the country ," the professor said via telephone from Padang on Monday.
He said the government needs to speed up human resources development to turn out competitive workers in international labor market especially in ASEAN.
Competition would be tighter including on the domestic market, and foreign workers such as from Singapore and Malaysia could likely win all job opportunities as they are better educated, he said.
"It is predicted that in ASEAN market Singapore would lead followed by Malaysia while Indonesia, the largest economy in this region is still beset by rampant corruption," he said.
Elfindri said highly aggressive countries backed up with availability of strong human resources such as China would from the AEC free market, adding China could even control investment scheme,
Therefore, it is time for President Jokowi to change his policy such as by giving top priority to improvement of the quality of the countrys human resources placing infrastructure development second in importance, he suggested.
Indonesia must not continue to be left behind in bilateral and multilateral cooperation schemes, he said.
"It is time for President Jokowi to act fast otherwise Indonesia would play a role of only as market destination in ASEAN," he said.
President Jokowi has expressed dissatisfaction with the progress in the countrys education sector saying there had been no change from the old system .
He asked Research , Technology and High Education Institute to find a breakthrough in education to turn out competitive Indonesian human resources.
(T.SYS/H-ASG/A014)
Editor: Suryanto
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