THE CONTRIBUTION OF INDONESIAN INTERNATIONAL STUDENT MOBILITY AWARDS (IISMA) ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS IN INDONESIA

• Main Author: Dewanto, Nadira
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/76939
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Indonesia has the second highest youth unemployment rate among all ten ASEAN countries according to The World Bank Data in 2021, with 12% of the total unemployment rate dominated by bachelor graduates. One of the reasons behind youth unemployment in Indonesia is the mismatch between the skills possessed by university students and the labor market skills demand, which is referred to as the “skill gap”. Experts believe that such a high number of youth unemployment is often linked with the failure of the education institutions to develop graduates with employability skills. Moreover, the skills gap is also associated with the globalization that is happening in the 21st century, followed by the new government regulations that eases the process of hiring foreign workers in Indonesia. In this era, Indonesian graduates have to compete with employees from foreign countries, thus making international and multicultural knowledge desired by companies. To tackle these challenges, many higher education and government institutions are implementing international student mobility programs in the hope to prepare the bachelor graduates to be more competitive in the international arena. Indonesian government has also displayed their effort in preparing Indonesian graduates to possess valuable workplace skills through a funded international student mobility, namely IISMA (Indonesia International Student Mobility Awards). However, there are still many contra-arguments from higher education institutions and the Indonesian society regarding the contribution of IISMA in developing the employability skills of undergraduate students. This study is aimed to identify the contribution of IISMA in developing the employability skills of undergraduate students in Indonesia, and to see whether it has a difference on the development of the employability skills in Indonesia undergraduate program. This study used a qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews, with the interviewees from Universitas Indonesia, Institut Teknologi Bandung, and Universitas Gadjah Mada, who have done an international student mobility program in 2021 and 2022. The study discovered that the majority of employability skills desired by companies are mainly developed during the IISMA program compared to during an undergraduate program in Indonesia.