It goes without saying that Australia and Indonesia enjoy a unique relationship. Quite aside from our geographic proximity, we share other characteristics that have helped us to forge strong relationships in a variety of business sectors.
Among these has been the rise in cooperation between our education sectors. Education is certainly a growth industry in Indonesia, with current government initiatives aimed at improving the employability and skills levels of many Indonesian students.
In late October last year, a consortium of Queensland education providers travelled to Jakarta to conduct a two day seminar called “Revitalisation of Indonesia’s Skills Development Through Industry Engagement”. The seminar was well attended, with more than 200 representatives of Indonesian Government ministries and education providers in attendance.
Among the presenters were representatives of Indonesian industry and education providers from Queensland including TAFE Queensland, Successful Graduate, SIMTARS and Aviation Australia. The session was hosted, funded and moderated by Trade and Investment Queensland.
Presenters at the Skills Development Conference in Jakarta (l-r Gordon Scott, Successful Graduate, Gordon Brown, Aviation Australia, Allan Brooks, Aviation Australia, Janelle Chapman, TAFE Qld, Brent Kinnane, TAFE Qld, David Phipps, SIMTARS)
Topics addressed some trends in vocation education provision in Australia and Indonesia. My own company presented on the topic of employability in Indonesia, and we were fortunate to have our new Bahasa Indonesia employability training product launched at the Australian Embassy as part of the proceedings.
Successful Graduate is an online employability skills training company. At the heart of what we do, we teach students about how to prepare a high quality job application. Our Indonesian site www.successfulgraduate.co.id carries the Bahasa version of our course, which has been modified and adapted for the Indonesian market.
We are proud to be an Australian ed-tech firm with clients in Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Fiji, PNG, Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
As a result of the October 2017 seminar, we are pleased to have signed up Universitas Al Azhar to trial our product. We are now seeking partners in Indonesia who may have an interest in helping us to develop the job application skills of Indonesian students.
Staff and students from Universitas Al Azhar including Dr Nita Noriko, Yasmi Adriansyah, Alfian Mahardika, Dr Yusuf Hidayat and Dr Fokky Fuad, with Gordon Scott, Rebecca Hall and Irma Irsyad from Trade and Investment Qld.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo has expressed his intention to open up Indonesia’s higher education market to international providers. This alone represents the single largest opportunity for enhanced cooperation between the Australian and Indonesian education sectors in history. Accordingly, we are in discussions with Australian education providers about partnering to provide joint education solutions in Indonesia.
I personally look forward to witnessing the growth of the education sector in Indonesia, and having enjoyed relationships in my “other home” for so long, I can’t wait to help more Indonesian students to succeed in their careers.
Gordon Scott
Gordon Scott is Managing Director of Successful Graduate Pty Ltd. If you are interested in collaborating to support Indonesian graduate employability, please contact him at gordon@successfulgraduate.com