Introductory Remarks of President Joko Widodo at the Limited Meeting on Human Resource Development for the Acceleration of Economic Growth, 21 November 2018, at the Bogor Presidential Palace, West Java
Unofficial English Translation
Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.
Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
Honourable Vice President,
Ladies and Gentlemen, all of the Working Cabinet Ministers,
This morning’s Limited Meeting will finalize the development of Human Resources in order to accelerate economic growth.
Initially, I would like to remind you that after a large stage of infrastructure development acceleration that has been running, and many of them have been completed and have already shown results, we will enter the next big stage, namely investment in HR, investment in Human Resources.
We must be able to utilize 260 million Indonesians as a great power of our country, not only to support the acceleration of economic growth, but also to pursue prosperity, to pursue mutual progress.
I see two keys of achieving that. The first one is refinement of our education system, especially vocational education revitalization that is adjusted to the industrial needs and tecnological advancement. In the last four years, we have been starting to transform and refine our vocational education system, however, I think that we have not fully done a major transformation yet. I see that the transformation in vocational school has been started, both in terms of its curriculum and teachers competence improvement, but once again, it needs a major transformation. And we demand that from next year, a major transformation should be done.
Then, the second one is skill enhancement of job-seekers and employees through vocational training and certification program. I want these programs to be carried out massively in the next year. I see, for instance, in Ministry of Public Work there is a certification program, and I see this as a very good thing, but it is still in small scale. And this program involves the Government, business sector, education sector, as well as Islamic boarding schools, so we hope the santris will not only receive religious education, but also practical skills.
I think I conclude my remarks here.(PR Division of Cabinet Secretariat)(RD/AW/YM/Naster)