Indonesia's higher education system: How responsive is it to the labor market?
International organizations
Information is gathered from other international organizations that promote skills development and the transition from education and training to work. The Interagency Group on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (IAG-TVET) was established in 2009 to share research findings, coordinate joint research endeavours, and improve collaboration among organizations working at the international and national levels.
Training quality and relevance
Research papers
Working papers, reports, and other publications from international organizations, academic institutions and bilateral agencies. Research findings to stimulate informed debate on skills, employment and productivity issues.
Indonesia is at a development crossroads. It successfully weathered the 2008 international financial crisis, and it has shown resilience in the current turbulent times. Its economy is now one of the largest 20 economies in the world and it has ambitious plans to achieve high-income status and join the G-7 by 2030. Yet the challenges it faces are daunting.
This paper presents a framework to look at incentives and argues that without the right system in place, the tendency of the education sector will not necessarily be to align its supply with the demands of the labour market. Section 2 discusses some key features of the system in Indonesia. Section 3 looks at the performance of higher education graduates in the labour market, their labour force participation, unemployment rates, the types of jobs they obtain and trends in the returns to higher education. Section 4 takes patterns in employment and returns to education, as well as employer surveys, to find signs of misalignment between supply and demand in the types of degrees of graduates, the sectors where they are employed and the skills they bring with them. Finally, section 5 concludes with some suggested policy directions and future research.
Education and training
Skills and training policy
Skills mismatch
Asia and the Pacific
