Bappenas Reveals Two Main Approaches To Overcome NEET Issues From The Indonesian Young People

Deputy for Population and Manpower of the Ministry of National Development Planning/Bappenas Maliki. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of National Development Planning (PPN)/National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) revealed that there are two main approaches that must be worked on to overcome the problem of NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) from young people in Indonesia.

The first approach is the development of workers' characters with the right work ethic and various life skills, so that they can be accepted positively in the industrial world.

"Of course, life skills must be taught from an early age, namely through education by his parents before school, (then) official schools from elementary schools (Basic Schools) to graduating ready for work," said the Deputy for Population and Manpower of the Ministry of National Development Planning/Bappenas Maliki, quoted from Antara, in Jakarta, Saturday, May 18.

With the continuity of the teaching system, he continued, it can produce workers who have aspirations to progress. This means that when they graduate from school, young people already know exactly where they are going and what they want to do.

According to him, this approach needs to be done because there are fundamental challenges that need to be resolved, namely improving a productive culture, a disciplined culture, and a good work ethic.

So far, there have been complaints from the industry that Indonesian workers do not yet have proper behavior, discipline, and work ethic. "The right aspirations between our workers have not been honed properly. So, there is no desire to progress," he said.

The second approach is to improve the suitability of the technical curriculum taught in schools or training places with the industry's desire to overcome the mismatch which is a major problem in employment issues. In a sense, there is a discrepancy between education and the desired work and the one created.

The prolonged Mismatch is considered to cause young people who graduate from school to be lazy to look for work.

Therefore, it is hoped that by reducing or shortening the search period for work, it can reduce the despair of young people who "lose their direction" and maintain their cognitive abilities, so that they are still able to work well.

"The suitability of the curriculum can be created with a strong collaboration between educational and industrial institutions, open information related to job opportunities provided through a popular and easy-to-reach labor market information system, and of course up-to-date teaching or training staff with existing technological developments," said Maliki.

In addition to these two approaches, several policies must also be applied with discipline, namely the fulfillment of educational rights at least until they graduate from high school (12 years of compulsory or equivalent), facilitation of movement in the labor market (reskilling and upskilling training, including internships according to market needs, job market information, and entrepreneurship) as well as high quality life facilitation (work-life balance).

As is known, ILOSTAT data shows that the NEET number in Indonesia reached 23 percent in 2012. Based on data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), there are 22.5 percent or 9.9 million productive age youth in Indonesia who experienced NEET throughout 2023.

From here, we have seen that NEET has always remained persistent and requires a systematic solution. The age of 9.9 million is a fairly large number, and if we consider that our population is increasing, especially young people will reach the peak according to our demographic bonus period, of course, it will also be higher for NEET," he said.