The Jakarta Globe Lenny Trista Tambun | September 13, 2012 Slashing secondary school dropout rates and producing more PhDs are key goals of the government’s master plan to boost education in Indonesia, which was released on Wednesday. The plan, unveiled by Deputy Education Minister Musliar Kasim at the launch event for the fifth branch of the Pelita Harapan School (SPH) International in Kemang Village, South Jakarta, aims to prepare Indonesians to fill the high-skill jobs of the future and compete with other nations in the region. The master plan aims to give a secondary school education to every child of the appropriate age. Musliar said the participation rate in secondary schools was currently at 73 percent, leading the government to focus on the remainder, who were missing out on a high-school education. The road map also aims to produce 4,000 PhD recipients each year. “By 2025, we will have 52,000 [additional] PhD graduates. We must learn from China, which has produced 500,000 PhD graduates. We hope we can raise our target to 100,000 PhD graduates annually through our scholarship programs,” Musliar said. The government committed to increasing the number of scholarships available to students from a broad range of professional backgrounds, moving beyond the traditional focus on civil servants, he added. Click here for full article. |
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