Ratification of a Skilled Labour Declaration

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1.Introduction
Three years after the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) established, ASEAN member states are still facing several difficulties in achieving free movement of their skilled labour. The aforementioned difficulties are, but not limited to, the disparities of English proficiency in each state and a low number of skilled labour in many member states that trigger their vulnerability to brain drain. Addressing these issues, Skilled Labour Committee of 2017 SRE-YMAC have made a declaration on which several agreed actions still need further revision that considers government regulations and political situations in each ASEAN member states. For a deeper understanding, this paper will focus on the challenges and potential impacts of these actions in one country, none other than Indonesia:

1) Establish an Information Technology Framework that can integrate skill training across ASEAN Less Economically Developed Countries (LEDCs) to avoid brain drain situation in these countries;

2) Initiate English-speaking in each ASEAN member states by means of programs and modules designed by ASEAN English-speaking countries.

2.Indonesia Context and Interests
Due to its burgeoning young population that amounted up to 67 million (Katadata, 2017), Indonesia is still struggling to distribute the education evenly across 17.000 islands of which the country comprised (Ranker, 2018). With a stream of global and multinational companies coming in under the AEC framework, the government convinced that English and other skills mastery is essential in order to fulfill the existing and new labour demands (Winarda, 2015).

Currently, Indonesia lacks students with quality vocational and technical skills (Allen, 2016). In addition, on the 2017 English Proficiency Index conducted by English First, Indonesia scored below the average score of Asian countries and fall under the Low Proficiency category (Valentina, 2017). The Indonesian government has made a lot of effort yet still looking forward to collaborating with other ASEAN member states to address these issues (Oxford Business Group, 2017).

3.Challenges and Potential Impacts of Information Technology Framework (ITF)
The declaration encouraged all ASEAN member states to design a skill-training online platform for ASEAN LEDCs, named as the ITF, by connecting academic and skill-training institutions across ASEAN. This action might be the best answer for Indonesia to distribute the education evenly and efficiently across the country as the ITF, which is a training platform, can be used by a lot of people at the same time. Unfortunately, some details of this action indicated that the ITF will not reach its best potential due to relevant constraints in several ASEAN LEDCs, including Indonesia. Regarding these constraints, Indonesia would like to suggest solutions worth considering prior to the ITF establishment.

The first constraint is the inadequacy of network coverage in ASEAN LEDCs' remote areas, that consequently cannot use the ITF and should engage with a traditional learning method namely workshop conducted by ASEAN MEDCs. Indonesia, indeed, has always been in the bottom rank in terms of network coverage that 43% of Indonesian schools have no internet connection yet (Oxford Business Group, 2017). However, this issue is currently addressed by Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) with SIERRA (SEAMEO Educational Repository for Remote Areas), an offline server containing abundant learning contents that have successfully reached hundreds of Indonesian remote schools (SEAMOLEC, 2017). Keeping SIERRA's concept in mind, Indonesia feels that adding skill-training materials into SIERRA is more plausible than spending enormous resources on workshops, such as teachers' and practitioners' transfers and fees.

The second constraint is the levels of English proficiency in some member states that are still really low, which according to the declaration, will make these member states unable to use the ITF effectively. To overcome this constraint, the ITF can use subtitles so that even member states with low English proficiency, including Indonesia, can still use the ITF effectively. The easiest example of how subtitles work is how they make it possible for people in non-English-speaking countries to enjoy Hollywood movies. In the ITF context, the subtitles can be made by hiring English proficients from each member states to translate the ITF contents into subtitles of their own language.

Considering the expected benefits of the ITF, Indonesia is willing to contribute its budget when the ITF can overcome the aforesaid constraints and prosper as a skill-training platform that can be accessed by many, which eventually will improve the quality of Indonesia's skilled labour. This is possible as the estimated cost of building the ITF, benchmarked from LinkedIn Learning which resembles the ITF as an online learning platform, will be around $1,5 billion (Yeung, 2016). For the fiscal year of 2018, Indonesia has $32 billion as their education budget, which after subtracted by priority education spending, still leaves enough to be contributed to the ITF establishment (Humas, 2018).

4.Challenges and Potential Impacts of English-Speaking Initiative
As the official language of ASEAN, English is likely to serve as the working language of the AEC. While interest in English has risen considerably over the years, Indonesia has still a long way to go to catch up with the likes of Singapore, Malaysia, or Brunei in terms of English proficiency. Although the government seems to have the interest to improve English proficiency with the introduction of bilingual curriculum for public universities (Wirdana, 2015), Indonesia feels that the English-speaking initiative is rather extreme and preposterous due to several current issues in Indonesia regarding the English-speaking initiative.

First and foremost, Indonesia is an archipelago comprising thousands of islands, filled with over 255 million people. Ignoring other 373 million people in other ASEAN member states (ASEAN, 2016), it is already problematical to make all of the 255 million to start using English as their new daily language. Moreover, if the English-speaking initiative is to be commenced, there will be resistance and even opposition from many as the thought of having to use English as a daily language only adds to the general feeling of violation over national identity (Wirdana, 2015).

Another prevailing issue is the fact that Indonesia is a country of linguistic richness with over 700 other languages coexist along with Bahasa Indonesia. Although Bahasa Indonesia is used widely as a language of wider communication, over 80% of the Indonesian population speak languages other than Bahasa Indonesia as their mother tongue (Whitehead, 2013). Accordingly, these people will feel bothered to learn and use yet another language for the wider communication purpose.

Based on the above arguments, Indonesia feels that English-speaking initiative is not viable. Instead, the initiative can focus on increasing English skill in Indonesia and other ASEAN member states by distributing programs and modules designed by ASEAN English-speaking countries, or to be more efficient, adding English materials to the previously-elaborated ITF.

5.Conclusion
Indonesia suggests that ASEAN should revamp the two actions in topic by considering the offered solutions and alternatives above. ASEAN should also thoughtfully consider other ASEAN member states' circumstances before implementing these actions. Hopefully then, ASEAN will be able to improve English proficiency and skill standardization across all member states and getting closer to the success of ASEAN Economic Community that will make ASEAN the 7th largest economy in the world (Asian Development Bank, 2017).

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