APACC

CERTIFICATION MODEL OF TVET GRADUATES IN INDONESIA

Prepared by:

Murdewi Siswandari
Directorate of Technical and Vocational Education,
Directorate General of Management for Primary and Secondary Education, Ministry of National Education,
Republic of Indonesia

15 - 26 August 2005, Manila, Philippines

The Indonesian government has considered that the establishment of the National Agency of Professional Certification (NAPC) is one of the important tasks in order to produce competence and capable human resources to confront the global era. The Agency is then intended to be the umbrella of the training institution, assessment institution and other relevant institution for the profession certification.

This report clarifies the accreditation and certification of TVET institution in Indonesia and focuses on the certification of TVET graduates at secondary schooling level. TVET schools are compulsory to be accredited by the National Board of School Accreditation (NBSA) and the schools could also apply to Professional Certification Body (PCB) to be accredited as part of professional certification system networking. TVET graduates may have two certificates, namely academic certificate and competency certificate and this is clearly stated in Act. No. 20, 2003 on the National Education System in the Republic of Indonesia.

The concept of the competency certification includes institution, procedure, mechanism, issuing the certificate and quality assurance. The system of competency assessment and accreditation is intended to be the basic and guidance for any actifity of competency assessment and accreditation in TVET. It is therefore, the competency certification of TVET graduates is considered important in order to produce capable human resources through TVET to confront this fully competitive era.

The Role of the National Agency of Professional Certification(NAPC) and the Professional Certification Body (PCB) in the Competency Certification for TVET Graduates

The availability of the human resources that are competence and capable in various area and level becomes the utmost important in confronting the global era, especially for the developing countries such as Indonesia. It is therefore, the Indonesian government realizes that only those human resources that could stay long and play the role in the era which is fully competitive. One of the idea that is agreed is the development of the human resources based on the competency. This Idea is then implemented through the establishment of The National Agency of Professional Certification (NAPC).

The NAPC is a semi independent body and was established under Presidential Decree No. 23 Year 2004. The agency is being operational gradually since the beginning of 2005. It consists with maximum 23 members of which maximum 10 of them are from Government Official. The Organizational Structure of the NAPC is as follows

The NAPC becomes the consideration for composing of the national standard system for competency. The Agency then becomes the umbrella of the training institution, assessment institution and other relevant institution for the profession certification. Under this agency there are Professional Certification Bodies (PCB) for TVET in Indonesia. The structure organization for the Profession Certification Body is as follows

In order to be operated, the PCB has four divisions namely Standardization, Certification, Accreditation and Information and Cooperation. There are a head division and some staff in each division. Besides, in the PCB, there are also two special Work Groups, namely Technical Work Group and Assessor Work Group.

The Technical Work Group is group that has the task to review the competency standard. It is and "adhoc" group. The group personnel come from relevant institution or industry who have the qualification to review the standard. The Adhoc Team gets the task from PCB and does the work based on the letter of instruction in a certain time. The team is responsible to and should give the result of the task to the head of PCB.

The Assessors' Work Group is a functional team, of which the personnel come from various professional association, industry, training institution and specialist from the higher education/ university. They should have the qualification as assessors, namely competence in the area to be assessed and have the assessment methodologies that are proved through with the assessor certification from legal institution. The work and do the assessment based on the task from the PCB.

Formal TVET in Indonesia can be divided into secondary and post secondary schooling. The TVET secondary schoolings are compulsory accredited by the National Board of School Accreditation (NBSA) while post secondary or polytechnic level is accredited by the National Board of Accreditation (NBA)This report focuses on the TVET secondary Schooling, the Technical and Vocational Secondary Schools (SMKs)

It is clearly stated in the National Education System in Indonesia Act No. 20, 2003, Article 61 that SMKs' graduates may have two certificates, namely academic certificate and competency certificate. Thus, the competency/profession certificate is intended to be one of the quality control of SMKs' graduates using standard which is determined by industry / profession. The consistency of keeping the quality of the graduates through competency certification then becomes the key words that should be accountable. The failure of students in gaining the competency/profession certification should then be the start point to develop the education implementation totally.

The competency certificate is the written assurance of the competency that has been achieved by the graduate after he/she is passed the competency assessment based on the determined competency standard. The PCB/industry or SMKs which has been accredited by PCB has the role in issuing the competency certificate.

The Competency Certification as one of the Certification Model of SMKs' Graduates

Competency Standarization is a process to formulate, to determine, to implement and to revise the competency standard, which is done continueslly and in cooperation by all relevant institution. The competency standard, which is then known as work competency standard, is the formulation of work competencies which includes various aspects, namely knowledge, skill and work attitude which are relevant with the terms of references that stated in the regulation and in the certain industry or assossiation.

Knowledge, skill and attitude of TVET students need to be assessed in order to know whether they are competence or not based on the standard which has been determined.

The competency certification is a process of giving the competency certificate which is done systematically and objective through the competency assessment that based on the determined competency standard.

In implementing the assessment there are principles namely : credible, flexible, fair and valid; Credible means that the method and procedure of assessment should be convincable so that the implementation of competency standard is consistent; Flexible means that the assessment can be done in the work place/industry, in classroom or in both of them which means give the coice of how, where and when the competency is achieved; Fair means that there is no descrimination among the assessment participants; and Valid is that the material that is tested should be what has been determined for the competency assessment.

The main steps in the system of standardization and certification of the competency are to formulate the competency standard, to issue the certification of the competency, to implement the competency standard and to provide the information of the competency standard.

In formulating the competency standard there should be compromise, fair, volunteer, harmony both nationally and internationally, whereas the issuing of the competency certification there should be based on the competency, independent, transparency, accountable and harmony both nationally and internationally.

The implementation of the competency standard should be based on the compulsory rights and indiscriminating implementation, and for the information itself should be opened for everybody easy to be accessed.

Competency Certification Scheme in TEVT

This system is the facility network order and competency standard which is systemic, fit, harmony and integrated and both nationally and internationally knowlegable.

The system will give the clarification for SMKs and other relevant stakeholders concerning the main task and role of in the systemic framework in order to produce capable HRD through SMKs.

In relation to this system the flow of thinking that direct to the competency certification at SMKs is as follows

The Readiness of the TVET Schools to Confront the Complexity of the Available Labour

TVET Education focuses in preparing students to enter the world of work and this is not an easy job since there complexcity of available labour markets. The complexity then becomes the challenge and at once the opportunity for Senior Technical and Vocational Schools to confront it. It is therefore necessary to identify and to look in detail how far the readiness of the schools to confront the challenge and the opportunities.

The competency certification at SMKs is a process to measure the competency achievement of the students and it is done in collaboration with the external institution or industry using the relevant competency standard that is agreed nationally/internationally and/or certain industry or certain society. For those who are passed then receive the certificate. Folowing is the Work Scheme for the certification of Competency :

There are two type of competency certification namely industry competency certification and competency certification which is oriented to qualification / profession. Industry copetency certification is a certification model which is developed in collaboration between school and industry/interprise in order to certify students, whereas qualificatin or profession competency certification is competency certification which is done by PCB or certain certification institution which is under the regulations or certain convertion in both national or international scale levels.

The populations of SMKs are 5335 both govenment and public. Based on the prior competency assessment that is done by industry and PCB, there are only 604 SMKs that are stated to have the potency to have nationally or internationaly standard. The number is relatively small if it is compared to the whole available SMKs and this reflecs to the quality of available SMKs. One of the example of the result of competency certification with industrial standard is that in the area of machinery, from 1,013 students that have been selected from various schools to join the competency assessment, there are only 286 who are passed.

The Competency Certification for SMKs Graduates is a Must and the NAPC should be in the Utmost Important in a Playing the Role

Having the competence and capable HRD in various area is one of the key of Indonesia to confront the global era. As has been mentioned above the NAPC play the important role in the issuing national standard system of competency to produce those HRD. Since the NAPC is a new body that just start to operate at the beginning of 2005 and the system itself must go, so all the stakeholders agree that for the time being the accreditation of the PCB is done under the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration through the Directorate of Standardization and Competency. Based on that agreement, the Minister of Manpower and Transmigration has accredited 6 PCB and 11 PCB is waiting to be accredited by the NAPC this year.

SMKs that apply and pass the PCB accreditation, will be awarded as Competency Testing Centers (CTC). The accredited SMKs as CTC has the right to conduct competency assessment under supervision of PCB.

Due to the huge task of the PCB, it is then the provincial branch of PCB could be established if necessary. The PCB branch office does the competency certification based on the rule which has been determined by central PCB.

Anticipation program on the system of competency / profession certification should than be done systemic and continually, and it is also should be put in the School Strategic Planning. There are some considerations in the anticipation programme on implementation of competency / profession certification, namely :

to determine the priority scale of specialist programme which will be put in the programme
to identify activities which should be implemented to achieve the programme
to collect the education resources both internally and externally to optimize the achievement of the objectives of the programme
to implement the programme, to evaluate it and to develop it continually
to implement the competency certification.

References

Act. No. 20, 2003 on the National Education System in the Republic of Indonesia
National Policy of School Accreditation, Ministry of National Education, Republic of Indonesia, 2004
Skills Toward 2020, Task Force Ministry Of Education and Culture of Republic of Indonesia, 1997
Academic Paper of the National Agency of Professional Certification (NAPC) by NAPC Working Group 2003
Academic Paper on Competency Certification System at SMKs (Secondary Technical and Vocational Schools), 2004
Country Report on Accreditation and Certification in TVET in Indonesia, 2004
The Technical and Vocational Education and Training for the Twenty-first Century UNESCO and ILO Recommendations 2002 & ILO Recommendation on TVET’s 21 century