VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Mar. 3 - Vice President Ma'ruf Amin has encouraged educational institutions, including universities, to facilitate the government in refining the quality of human resources to enable Indonesia to progress at the same pace as developed nations.

"One of our main challenges is the quality of human resources at the college level that has not reached the ideal figure," the vice president noted in his remarks at the online Graduation event of Nahdlatul Ulama University (UNU) in West Nusa Tenggara here on Wednesday.

As a country with profuse natural resources, Indonesia should be able to tap into this potential to come up with products of high demand. This can be realized only if the community has proficiency in processing those natural resources.

Amin cited as an example two countries in Asia -- South Korea and Singapore -- that have been able dominate the global market with their electronic products and international business despite having limited human and natural resources.

"South Korea has dominated the world with a variety of quality electronic products and vehicles. Meanwhile, Singapore, which does not have sufficient natural resources, can continue to ably dominate the international business," he pointed out.

Indonesia, with an abundance of human and natural resources, is still scrambling to stay shoulder-to-shoulder with developed nations in Asia.

"Indonesia, which has abundant natural resources, still has to catch up with countries, such as South Korea and Singapore," he stated.

Amin expressed belief that quality education and the large number of people taking up higher education have had a considerable impact on progress in both nations.

"Some nations that are experiencing rapid progress in the world generally have well-educated human resources. For instance, South Korea. They have a gross enrolment ratio of 91 percent in tertiary education, while Singapore is at 62.2 percent," he noted.

To this end, the vice president expects Indonesia's universities, especially the UNU NTB, to broaden their roles and functions in creating human resources, with mastery in technological knowledge, and create innovation to fulfill the demand of the global market.

"The UNU NTB must shoulder the responsibility of preparing qualified and professional human resources, so that they are able to manage the regional potential and become an important part of development programs in West Nusa Tenggara,” the vice president noted. (Antaranews)