[Unpad.ac.id, 24/09/2013] According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation Development (OECD), Indonesia, in line with its effort to encourage universities in creating as many competent graduates as possible, is turning into a country with the fifth largest university graduates in 2020. This, however, is not accompanied by the considerably high rate of employment. Such phenomenon, as Anissa Lestary Kadiyono, a lecturer at the faculty of psychology stresses out, requires improvement.
“Based on the data from Statistics Indonesia, unemployed people in February 2013 totals 360 thousand people, or 5.04% out of 7.17 million unemployed people, said Kadiyono, when giving a talk on the role of human capital in creating positive attitude and building character of the nation in globalization era, in commemoration of Faculty of Psychology 52nd anniversary on Saturday (21/09).
The fact that university graduates have yet to go into jobs may likely be caused by the inapplicable competences that the graduates have, which do not fit the requirements the industry looks for. In addition, work ethics, motivation, creativity and innovativeness may not be holistically possessed.
Human capital is the basic ingredient for one to be able to create positive mental attitude that will contribute to environmental progress and organizational productivity and universities play a great role in generating this very capital. “Education is responsible for both generating knowledge and building positive attitude and skills. Universities are where students forged to be emotionally and psychologically balanced,” she concluded.
