The Indonesian water management sector is rapidly growing and has a high demand for skilled water construction workers. Indonesia, however, has a lack of skilled water construction workers as no education and training at secondary vocational level is available in this field. Although water construction knowledge at higher education and academic level is available in Indonesia, it is focussed on engineering and design, not on operational knowledge and skills. Therefore water construction projects in Indonesia have to make use of skilled workers from abroad, for example Malaysia, or work with unskilled workers.

PT. VAPRO Indonesia and VAPRO International have initiated a project to develop and test a vocational education program for water construction workers at secondary vocational level in cooperation with SMK’s in Jakarta, Surabaya and Nusa Penida (Bali). The education program Water Construction will be developed as an additional course on top of existing SMK programs in the field of construction. Target group for the Water Construction program are workers already employed by water construction firms and graduates from SMK’s (future water construction workers).

Indonesian partners in the project are:
Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) Surabaya
SMKN 1 Jakarta
SMKN 7 Surabaya
SMKN 1 Nusa Penida
PT. BAM Decorient Indonesia
GAPENRI, branch organisation for construction firms

Dutch partners are:
VAPRO International
World Water Academy

The project is supported by the Ministry of Education of Indonesia and is financially supported by the Dutch government. The project will formally start with a kick-off conference in the beginning of 2011. The project duration will be three years.

The education program for water construction workers will be relevant all over Indonesia. Therefore the project will put emphasis on making available the education program to other regions in Indonesia.

If you are interested in this project and want to learn more please contact us.