Education Observer: Many SMK Majors Need to Be Evaluated

JAKARTA - Unnes education observer, Edi Subkhan, assessed that the large number of Vocational High School (SMK) graduates who find it difficult to find jobs is a classic problem related to the curriculum, facilities at SMK to practice updated things, and availability of jobs.

He revealed that SMK school students usually come from the lower middle class, who want their children to be able to get a job directly when they graduate. Therefore, SMK is designed to provide technical skills to students.

"It's just that in the current era, many majors need to be evaluated in terms of their relevance and real needs in the world of work. Some majors that are already saturated, no longer needed, should be closed," said Edi, Sunday, December 21.

According to him, if the majors are still opened and there are students who enter, the losers are the students, because there is no job opportunity when they graduate. Some of the majors are office administration, management, accounting, even including computer and network engineering. One of them is because companies accept S1 graduates, who are also more numerous and are seen as more competent than SMK graduates.

"On the other hand, vocational schools that have many relationships with the industrial world will usually advance, especially in terms of the completeness of infrastructure. From there they can pursue real competencies. But not all vocational schools have the ability to establish relationships with the industrial world, besides that the company is limited to its ability to support vocational schools," said Edi.

He gave an example, large companies such as in Kudus, can support SMK in Kudus to advance, including companies from Japan, for example, can provide support to SMK with the direction that its graduates can be selected to become Japanese labor after graduation.

"Unfortunately, not all vocational schools can be like that. In fact, vocational schools that have the latest infrastructure are not necessarily able to establish definite relationships and cooperation to supply graduates to certain companies," concluded Edi.