Indonesia continues its upwards trajectory in its social and economic development, with average estimated economic growth at 4.9% in 2024 and 2025. However, some major challenges remain, including the quality of human capital and its supply and demand mismatch.
Transforming the country’s Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is part of Indonesian government’s strategic priority agenda to address these challenges. It is especially imperative as the private sector in Indonesia provides over 90% employment opportunities, yet industries often overlook vocational education graduates, primarily due to insufficient industry-relevant skillset. Moreover, pursuing vocational education instead of going to university is a choice only 14% of all tertiary level students made nationwide. This means there is a lot of work to be done, from improving schools’ curriculum to train more skilful graduates to improving lecturers’ qualifications and industry-related experiences.
The Government of Indonesia answers this challenge by developing a comprehensive approach for skills development, based on the Presidential Decree No. 68 in 2022 on the National Revitalization of Vocational Education and Training. The decree is followed by the implementation of National Strategy on Revitalizing Vocational Education and Training until 2030, which would impact nearly 2,200 tertiary level vocational education institutions and one million students.
Swiss Skills for Competitiveness (SS4C) Program combines two previous Swisscontact projects in Indonesia, namely the Skills for Competitiveness (S4C) and the Sustainable Tourism Education Development (STED), both to start Phase II in 2024.
The program builds on the results of both projects’ initial six-year implementation, which aims to strengthen the dVET service providers, through key elements namely industry-based curriculum, competent lecturers and trainers, and practical facilities, operating in specific sectors. S4C covers metal, manufacturing, furniture and wood, petrochemicals, and food processing in collaboration with the Ministry of Industry (MoI), while STED focuses on tourism alongside the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economies (MoTCE).
SS4C program aims to reach three different target groups: public and private stakeholders/service providers forming part of the broader skills for competitiveness ecosystem, Indonesian women and men in search for decent work and career options and, ultimately, private sector companies, namely SMEs competing in the global market.
Inspired by Swiss dVET expertise and best practices, SS4C works to improve polytechnic education key actors with a strategic focus on the private sector and becoming industry-relevant, so that graduates are equipped with industry-relevant skills for more productive and competitive Indonesian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) on the global market.
For the next four years, projects under SS4C Program will engage polytechnics and lead companies to integrate dVET key elements into their institutions, as well as ministries and policymakers to institutionalise industry-centred skills development initiatives, to improve the skills and competitiveness of Indonesian companies seeking for decent work upon completing vocational education.
The program’s successes by 2027 will be reflected by key results below: