Jakarta, February 27, 2025 – Universitas Terbuka (UT) held a strategic audience with the Ministry of Indonesian Migrant Worker Protection (P2MI) / Indonesian Migrant Worker Protection Agency (BP2MI) at the Ministry of P2MI Building, Pancoran, South Jakarta. This meeting discussed the continuation of cooperation in expanding education access for Indonesian Migrant Workers (PMI), empowering former PMI, and improving human resource competencies to meet global workforce needs.
Since the signing of the Cooperation Agreement (PKS) in 2018-2021, UT has gained access to educate prospective PMI through Pre-Departure Orientation (OPP) activities and provide Training of Trainers (ToT) for BP2MI instructors. This cooperation has significantly contributed to increasing the number of PMI pursuing higher education at UT. In 2021, the number of UT students abroad reached 2,202, continuing to increase to 6,527 students in 2024 out of a total of 671,967 UT students overall. In addition, 1,555 PMI have successfully completed their education at UT.
As the 2024 PKS ends, UT considers it important to continue and strengthen cooperation with the Ministry of P2MI/BP2MI to ensure the sustainability of education access for PMI.
The Minister of Indonesian Migrant Worker Protection, Abdul Kadir Karding, stated that the establishment of the Ministry of P2MI is part of the President’s Vision and Mission Document (Asta Cita), which aims to provide comprehensive protection for PMI before, during, and after working abroad. The Minister also highlighted the challenges faced, including 5.4 million procedural PMI and 4.2 million non-procedural PMI, as well as efforts to prevent illegal migration through regulations and socialization.
“Where does UT want to take a role? In protection, empowerment, or utilization of overseas job opportunities? I think UT, which is spread throughout the country and abroad, can contribute to these three aspects,” said Minister Abdul Kadir Karding.
As a concrete step, the Ministry of P2MI is currently collaborating with various vocational institutions to improve the human resource competencies of PMI. Currently, there are 1.7 million job opportunities abroad, but only around 400 thousand or 32.4% have been filled. Therefore, improving the competence of PMI is an urgency that needs to be addressed together.
In this audience, UT emphasized its commitment to expanding higher education access for PMI. The UT Vice Rector 3 stated that UT already has 7,000 students abroad, a number that is still far from the total Indonesian migrant workers. With closer cooperation with the Ministry of P2MI, UT plans to increase promotion and socialization to ensure more PMI can continue their higher education while working.
In addition, UT also plans to inaugurate a Vocational School, in line with the Ministry of P2MI’s initiative to improve PMI skills before departure. In the future, UT and the Ministry of P2MI will follow up on cooperation through further discussions with their respective Directorates General to design program implementations that can be realized immediately.
One of the issues discussed was the concern of PMI interns in Japan regarding the recognition of UT diplomas to apply for other jobs with appropriate visa status. To overcome this obstacle, further cooperation between the Indonesian government and the Japanese government is needed so that UT graduates can obtain wider academic recognition in the international labor market.
As a follow-up to this audience, UT and the Ministry of P2MI have agreed to sign a formal cooperation agreement in the near future, along with the Ministry of P2MI’s cooperation signing agenda with various other agencies. The draft Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been in the finalization process since last week and will be ratified soon.
With closer collaboration between UT and the Ministry of P2MI, it is hoped that PMI will find it easier to access quality higher education, acquire relevant skills, and have wider job opportunities at home and abroad.
