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With the pieces of the government’s ambitious decade-long economic master plan starting to fall into place, some are asking whether a crucial element has been forgotten.

The government says 91 projects worth at least Rp 462 trillion ($50.8 billion) began in May 2011 under the Master Plan for Economic Expansion and Acceleration (MP3EI), a multistage economic plan to build six economic corridors spanning the archipelago.

But what of manpower?

Arief Rachman, an education expert who chairs the National Commission for Unesco, said a core area in any solution to the problems facing the developing world is science and technology.

“But the harnessing of science for development depends on the skills of the people, which requires a robust and effective higher education system as the only mechanism that can produce and sustain these skills,” he said.

The country’s higher education system faces still a litany of challenges ranging from equitable access, employability of graduates, quality of teaching, research and services and more, Arief says.

Faisal Jalal, the former deputy minister for education and culture, acknowledged there aren’t enough qualified graduates to support the MP3EI.

“The quality as well as quantity of industrial polytechnic graduates is still far from being able to sustain programs focused on developing approximately 120 industries,” he said.

The MP3EI includes projects in 22 sectors, mostly natural resources and manufacturing. It envisions six corridors: in Sumatra, particularly along the western coastline, which will specialize in agriculture and energy; Java (industry and services); Kalimantan (mining); Sulawesi and North Maluku (agriculture and fisheries); Bali and Nusa Tenggara (tourism and food security); and Papua and Maluku (natural resources).

According to one theory, Faisal said, one engineer must be supported by at least three polytechnic graduates in the industrial sector. The fact, though, is that there are more engineering graduates than there are polytechnic graduates. “Many [students] don’t like polytechnic [qualifications] because they don’t carry a title; they tend to choose to have a title,” Faisal said.

Besides, he added, the response from the market to polytechnic graduates is not always encouraging, and thus many students choose to enrol in universities instead.

“This is really problematic, because we’re now heading to MP3EI, for which there must be much infrastructure and projects that relate to engineering. It is very sad that we have only limited numbers of [polytechnic graduates],” he said.

To confront the challenges, Faisal urged all relevant parties to immediately work on fixing the polytechnic system.

“Map the potential commodity. From there we must develop the study programs,” he said.

Faisal also emphasized that special effort is needed once the Asean community is realized in 2015, when foreign workers will more easily compete with Indonesians for jobs.

“Later, if foreign workers come in, the job opportunities that are available will be more narrow if people don’t have a special skill,” he said.

To help improve the quality of higher education, Arief said action was needed, such as the recommendations listed in the Unesco World Declaration on Higher Education for the 21st Century.

“Each higher education institution should define its mission according to the present and future needs of society,” Arief said.

This means, he said, in establishing priorities in their programs and structures, higher education should take into account the need to abide by the rules of ethics and scientific and intellectual rigor, and the multidisciplinary and trans-disciplinary approach.