Indonesia launches more community-based vocational training centres

Indonesia’s Manpower Minister Ida Fauziyah said, “The establishment of community-based BLK is a form of effort to spread work training institutions so that they can be accessed by citizens who live far away from the available work training institution locations.” 

The launch was marked by the signing of the 2021 Community-based Vocational Training Center contract between the manpower ministry and the aid recipient institution. 

The BLK is a programme conceived by President Joko Widodo in 2017. The manpower ministry has established 2,127 BLKs across Indonesia as of 2020. 

For 2021, the ministry aims to build 787 BLKs – 520 will be built in stage 1 and an additional 267 will be built in stage 2, Fauziyah said. Also, for this year, the ministry has increased the number of training branches by 24, she added. 

Fauziyah said that with more BLKs, the competency of local human resources will be improved, and more skilled and qualified workers can be added to the labour force. 

Besides setting up more BLKs and training branches, the minister stressed that it is important to job-match the trained human resources produced by BLKs to the industry and the micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). 

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In addition, Fauziyah urged the aid recipient institution to conduct the construction process following technical guidelines laid down. She added that the directorate general of the ministry’s vocational training and productivity guidance will strictly oversee the entire process and ensure that the construction of BLKs is done in a transparent way, according to Antara News.