Indonesia Lacks Human Resources in STEM Fields

According to Director of Human Resources and Job Opportunity, Ministry of National Development (PPN)/Institute of National Planning and Development (Bappenas), Mahatmi Parwitasari Saronto, in this Volatility, Uncertainty, Complex and Anxiety (VUCA), Indonesia is still lacking the human resource in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Because of that, the government encourages higher education institutions to develop expertise in STEM fields.

Such concern was stated when she spoke as the keynote speaker in an international speaker, made happen by a partnership between IPB University (IPB) and Ministry of PPN/Bappenas in IPB International Convention Center, Bogor (25/4). The theme of that seminar is "Future Skill and Future Job: Development of Human Capital in Indonesia".

"Industrial Revolution 4.0 era has the potential of disrupting the job market. Routine and manual job sectors will lose and be replaced with new job fields requiring high expertise, such as those related with information technology, health, construction, art, professional, management, etc. In the future, the expertise needed are those irreplaceable by machines, such as problem solving, negotiation, creativity, and critical thinking," she said.

Indonesia has a huge need of experts in technology technical fields. Unfortunately, currently Indonesia only produces STEM fields graduate as many as 8 per 10.000 population. The number is so small and far behind China and India. Moreover, Indonesia ranked the bottom 10 of 72 countries in mathematics and scientific skills.

Technological development in this era has changed how people live. Various big companies in this world are mostly technology companies who have changed the global trend during the past two decades. The digital technology improvement has also opened new job opportunity in never known before-fields, which also affect the social life of people," she added.

Dean of Faculty of Economy and Management of IPB, Dr. Ir. Nunung Nuryartono in her greeting speech said that IPB has been actively responding Industry 4.0, not only initiating 4.0 researches, also 4.0 curriculum.

This seminar has the purpose to provide various comprehensive recommendation related to the issues of human resource development in Indonesia to improve competitiveness in VUCA era. The audience in this event consists of lecturers, researchers, professionals, students, and policy makers from various institutions who formulated the policies which positively contributes to human resource development in Indonesia. This international seminar also presented several speakers from inside or outside Indonesia. (Ard)