In some alumni gathering by my university, there’s several sessions of seminar by older members. Usually they’re business owners or directors of some ‘big’ national company. Their grief was most of the same concerning the younger generation; that is the lack of ‘ready made’ graduates from our educational system in general.
They claim that most of the new intakes are awkward and not necessarily skilled to perform even the entry level in their organization. It is arguable whether this is a hyperbole or not, considering most of these so called ‘big names’ were once awkward new graduates struggling to impress their bosses too back in the day.
Perhaps it’s a valid criticism. With them able to step into the highest ladder of their own respective company means that they have proved themselves, therefore they have earned the right to pass judgments.
In reality though, state owned schools and universities in Indonesia very rarely teach practical and technical skills to their students. They are usually aiming their curriculum to produce individual capable of future learning and develop their own internal ability to perform non specific tasks, broad in general yet merely scratching the surface.
We can’t really fault the institution. In the understanding that ‘society’ is a massive and complex system with complicated interconnections between many subjects, consequently it’s not academic to direct the teachings to exceedingly specific channels. Unfortunately not many of their students realize this dilemma.
An easy example in the computer science education is regarding the many programming languages within the industry. Universities usually have classes that teach the basics and logical foundation of the entire programming languages popular in that period. They can’t be specific teaching in depth PHP and MySQL to all of their students. Who would know for sure that PHP will still be used in three or four years ahead?
The other factor would be that their professors are not well resourced to master all those different programming languages and following the ever-changing trends in the business. They probably feel they were not paid enough to do all that. Hence they simply teach the basics, the ones that will not change much overtime.
Back in the seminar, case in point they were using was of ITB and Binus. In recent years the growing trend absorption level of employment proved that Binus’ graduates were relatively more ‘ready’ than their competitors from ITB on computer science and informatics. For information in Binus they were taught that specific proficiency right from the bat.
The same thing happened in Architecture. ITB graduates, compared to Parahyangan University, in entry-level job would have more difficulties adapting to mundane drafting tasks. This is due to different approach in their curriculum. In my days of studying, we focused a lot on design methodology, history of architecture, rule of reporting, and evolution of style, instead of ‘how to actually draw’ using pen or CAD.
In fairness the professors may argue that they’re not preparing us to become mere coders or drafters, nevertheless in actual fact the industry requires graduates to pass three or even five years struggling with coding and drafting works before they can apply the bulk of knowledge they learned in the university. In the long run it may prove otherwise, yet that is still depending on plenty of other factors. It is a conundrum really.
Here we are talking about one of the better state university in Indonesia. I cannot speak too much about other leading institutions such as UI, UGM, and ITS. I figure they are just about the same.
Students who are motivated and ambitious enough would learn that specific extra curricular skill set themselves in their own time. Even though this may hamper their effort to attain good marks but in the long term it will help them greatly in the working arena.
So it’s no strange that one new graduate with perfect marks in his/her diploma would struggle to perform real entry level jobs in a company. They study all the time and forget to mingle with their friends in student’s organizations. In working place, teamwork and social soft skills would definitely help them a lot to find their feet.
There’s an unhealthy difference of paradigm between the educational society and business world in relation to the term ‘ready made’ and ‘qualified’. This shows a wide gap between those two planes, how detached they are one to another. Some institutions have acknowledged this and bridging the two worlds early by involving relevant business professionals in their organizations.
Conceivably that is also one of the reason more than one million of university graduates in Indonesia currently unemployed. This staggering statistic was the headline in national newspapers last week. They are probably smart full of knowledge yet very few able to translate it to practical level.
I think it’s high time the Education Department to worry more about this phenomenon instead of spending too much time choosing sound card brand of their department’s high end lap top that they’re going to ‘pinch’ by the end of this year’s budget.
My last trip back to Bandung showed that my alma mater have changed some of their education model. There's some buzz about the place and the word ‘techno-preneur’ is bandied around a lot, whatever that means.
They claim that most of the new intakes are awkward and not necessarily skilled to perform even the entry level in their organization. It is arguable whether this is a hyperbole or not, considering most of these so called ‘big names’ were once awkward new graduates struggling to impress their bosses too back in the day.
Perhaps it’s a valid criticism. With them able to step into the highest ladder of their own respective company means that they have proved themselves, therefore they have earned the right to pass judgments.
In reality though, state owned schools and universities in Indonesia very rarely teach practical and technical skills to their students. They are usually aiming their curriculum to produce individual capable of future learning and develop their own internal ability to perform non specific tasks, broad in general yet merely scratching the surface.
We can’t really fault the institution. In the understanding that ‘society’ is a massive and complex system with complicated interconnections between many subjects, consequently it’s not academic to direct the teachings to exceedingly specific channels. Unfortunately not many of their students realize this dilemma.
An easy example in the computer science education is regarding the many programming languages within the industry. Universities usually have classes that teach the basics and logical foundation of the entire programming languages popular in that period. They can’t be specific teaching in depth PHP and MySQL to all of their students. Who would know for sure that PHP will still be used in three or four years ahead?
The other factor would be that their professors are not well resourced to master all those different programming languages and following the ever-changing trends in the business. They probably feel they were not paid enough to do all that. Hence they simply teach the basics, the ones that will not change much overtime.
Back in the seminar, case in point they were using was of ITB and Binus. In recent years the growing trend absorption level of employment proved that Binus’ graduates were relatively more ‘ready’ than their competitors from ITB on computer science and informatics. For information in Binus they were taught that specific proficiency right from the bat.
The same thing happened in Architecture. ITB graduates, compared to Parahyangan University, in entry-level job would have more difficulties adapting to mundane drafting tasks. This is due to different approach in their curriculum. In my days of studying, we focused a lot on design methodology, history of architecture, rule of reporting, and evolution of style, instead of ‘how to actually draw’ using pen or CAD.
In fairness the professors may argue that they’re not preparing us to become mere coders or drafters, nevertheless in actual fact the industry requires graduates to pass three or even five years struggling with coding and drafting works before they can apply the bulk of knowledge they learned in the university. In the long run it may prove otherwise, yet that is still depending on plenty of other factors. It is a conundrum really.
Here we are talking about one of the better state university in Indonesia. I cannot speak too much about other leading institutions such as UI, UGM, and ITS. I figure they are just about the same.
Students who are motivated and ambitious enough would learn that specific extra curricular skill set themselves in their own time. Even though this may hamper their effort to attain good marks but in the long term it will help them greatly in the working arena.
So it’s no strange that one new graduate with perfect marks in his/her diploma would struggle to perform real entry level jobs in a company. They study all the time and forget to mingle with their friends in student’s organizations. In working place, teamwork and social soft skills would definitely help them a lot to find their feet.
There’s an unhealthy difference of paradigm between the educational society and business world in relation to the term ‘ready made’ and ‘qualified’. This shows a wide gap between those two planes, how detached they are one to another. Some institutions have acknowledged this and bridging the two worlds early by involving relevant business professionals in their organizations.
Conceivably that is also one of the reason more than one million of university graduates in Indonesia currently unemployed. This staggering statistic was the headline in national newspapers last week. They are probably smart full of knowledge yet very few able to translate it to practical level.
I think it’s high time the Education Department to worry more about this phenomenon instead of spending too much time choosing sound card brand of their department’s high end lap top that they’re going to ‘pinch’ by the end of this year’s budget.
My last trip back to Bandung showed that my alma mater have changed some of their education model. There's some buzz about the place and the word ‘techno-preneur’ is bandied around a lot, whatever that means.
