He revealed that currently, the industrial world requires workers with specific competencies. Thus, a bachelor's degree does not guarantee immediate recruitment after graduation, he added.
"It really depends on the needs of the industry," the minister explained while delivering a public lecture at the Sumatra Institute of Technology (Itera) in Lampung on Tuesday.
According to Yassierli, the competition to be the best candidate has gotten tougher because the industry needs people who are ready to work.
"Therefore, I urge universities to collaborate in order to prepare students who are able to compete to meet the competency expectations of the industry," he said.
He also called on universities to help improve Indonesia’s human capital index (HCI), which is still below the average of ASEAN countries at 0.540.
In addition to workforce quality, he underlined low productivity as another challenge that needs to be addressed.
"Our productivity compared to Vietnam, for example, is very far below. Vietnam is one of the countries that has made extraordinary acceleration in the last 10 years," Yassierli pointed out.
He said that Vietnam has been making efforts to improve its workforce by building many job training centers and focusing on a large-scale productivity movement.
"It means that we have just started doing something that we should have done 10 years ago. But it is never too late; hopefully, later we can accelerate the efforts," he noted.
He also highlighted the limited number of digital talents in Indonesia, with only 19 percent of workers having digital skills.
"Then workers in Indonesia who have digital skills at the advanced level are only 6 percent," he revealed.
Therefore, he emphasized the need for each university to prepare a curriculum for each study program that specifically focuses on building the digital skills of students.
"This is a portrait of the current challenges in our workforce and maybe the solution is in universities," the minister said.
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Translator: Dian Hadiyatna, Yashinta Difa
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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