Coordinating Minister For SMEs Teten Masduki Asks Universities In Indonesia To Present An Entrepreneur Laboratory For The Creation Of Superior Entrepreneurs

Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs Teten Masduki. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs Teten Masduki appealed to universities in the country to provide entrepreneurial laboratories on campus to create superior entrepreneurs based on creativity and technology. "Because if we look at now, young people are very interested in becoming entrepreneurs. Looking at data from the Asia Pacific Young Entrepreneur Survey in 2021, 72 percent of generation Z and millennials want to become entrepreneurs. Now, it's different from my generation and the Chancellor first. Many young people actually want to become employees, both government employees and private employees," he said through an official statement, quoted from Antara, Friday, December 9.

Moreover, he added, the Ministry of Education and Culture has a matching fund program that students can use, so that student entrepreneurship development can be connected to research at universities.

He also said that the results of student research could be lost and commercialized into a superior product of young entrepreneurs born from universities.

Furthermore, Minister Teten quoted data from Focus Economy Outlook 2021 and the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy that the potential for the creative industry in the country contributed around IDR 1.91 trillion to Indonesia's GDP last year.

Even in the midst of the Indonesian economy which is experiencing a pandemic, the average increase in growth reached 5.76 percent.

This, according to him, shows that the creative economy is a good economic opportunity. Therefore, it is important that universities today change their mindset through their curriculum and campuses can play an entrepreneurial laboratory in creating superior entrepreneurs based on creativity and technological innovation.

He said this was also related to Indonesia's economic ability to absorb employment. Every year, there are 3.5 million new school graduates who will enter the world of work and 1.7 million of them are undergraduates.

If Indonesia's economic growth is normally in the range of five percent, only two million people are absorbed in employment.

For this reason, he said, it is important to prepare campus graduates to give birth to undergraduates, no longer as job seekers, but instead become job creators so that they do not have a lot of unemployment in Indonesia.

In innovation on campus, must start growing scientists who encourage young people to give birth to creative entrepreneurs. There have been many examples of young Indonesians with innovative products taking part in the world. Like Nadiem Makariem with his Gojek, William Tanuwijaya through Tokopedia, to Muhammad Yuka with his Brodo products," he said.