By: Dadang Suhendar *
In the face of increasingly fierce and faster global competition, comprehensive acceleration of countries in various sectors is needed. The latest technology and superior HR are considered as the main components to support this goal.
Faced with this, Indonesia launched a vision of Indonesia going forward. One of them is by preparing superior human resources and technology modernization. It was conceived as a sustainable national development. A nation that is strong and able to compete in a globalized world is the hope of all parties.
Global market competition is not only dominated by a country’s ability to expand natural resources and production volumes. But now with the development of the Industrial Revolution era that is so fast, the global market needs high-tech quality human resources based on millennial generation. Superior human resources are now a lever factor for the speed of innovating a country’s macroeconomic strength.
The phenomenon in a number of countries known as the Asian Tigers the acceleration of high-tech development is always supported by the maximum number of engineers who continue to increase. The question is why the number of engineers in Indonesia did not increase, as Asia became increasingly excited by the acceleration of the development of its high-tech industry. And how does that correlate with the decreasing competitiveness of this country?
It is very interesting to underline when President Jokowi in the momentum of August 17, 2019 emphasized, we need science and technology that can make us jump and overtake other nations. We need breakthroughs, clever shortcuts, easy, fast. We need superior HRs with Indonesian heart, ideology of Pancasila. On the other hand, we also face the problem of macro competence. Based on ASO College Group research from Japan, in 2015, the availability of engineering graduates in Indonesia was 37,000 people per year. In fact, every year ideally it takes around 57,000 people. Meanwhile, in the 2015-2020 period it is estimated that an average of 90,500 per year is needed. This means that Indonesia needs additional young resources to catch up. Their position as a key driver of the industrial world.
Without us realizing the leap of a number of Asian countries which has rapidly reduced the value-added activities in the domestic industrial vehicle, experts and skilled workers who have the potential to lose the opportunity to take the evolutionary momentum of the design, engineering and manufacturing processes. This in turn is connected to the slowing down of the value added process of producing high quality products which in turn reduces the country’s overall competitiveness.
In the situation of our country’s sluggish industrial activities, it is possible to bring up a wave of migration of our experts and talents, especially millennials to choose to take part abroad because the global market share opens wide access to the needs of high-tech resources. To answer this problem, it is necessary to create a short and medium-term vision that is strongly oriented with the importance of investment in science and technology infrastructure that is connected from the level of education to universities which are interrelated with all institutions producing goods and services that have innovation value.
It is time for the state to leave the narrative orientation of the benefits of natural resources that always appear coloring textbooks and teaching patterns in schools. Simplification of this narrative really needs to be done so that we don’t get into permanent difficulties to improve the position of the nation’s competitiveness. It is time for Indonesia to advance in developing smart factories through the brain gain policy of a superior HR unit to be able to gather the potential of the nation’s children in terms of science, technology and innovation in the industrial revolution era 4.0.
- The writer is a Youth Care Activist Nation
