Synchronizing the Job Market: The Analysis of the Vocational Schools Role amidst Developing Labor Market in Indonesia

Abstraksi

In 2006, Indonesian government began to expand its own vocational school system (Sekolah Menengah Kejujuran or SMK) to build the labor force which is compatible with multiple developing industrial sectors. Since 2004 - 2015, much funding has been allocated to increase quantity and quality of vocational schools, however, there has been no evaluation of its massive allocation on fulfilling the demand of labor force (MoEC, 2017). This research tries to evaluate the efficiency of the vocational school distribution by examining the supply-demand pattern of vocational school graduates at the provincial level in Indonesia. Furthermore, this research also studied the role of the vocational school's graduates in building successful enterprises and creating new job opportunities. Using the recent data of Indonesian National Labor Force Survey (SAKERNAS) and Core Educational Data (DAPODIK), we will conduct both statistical analysis and static microsimulation to assess the efficient distribution of the vocational school. The result indicates that there is a mismatch between supply and demand of vocational school graduates at the provincial level. Moreover, we also find that there are several types of vocational program (Program Studi or Prodi) in multiple provinces in Indonesia that categorized as irrelevant in term of current job market application. The result can be considered as a valuable input in form of policy brief to the policymaker, reducing the excess of irrelevant Prodi, while providing an incentive to fund the most relevant one.