Deputy minister urges universities to navigate AI preparing graduates

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1 hour ago

Jakarta (ANTARA) – Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Science, and Technology, Stella Christie, has urged universities to grasp artificial intelligence (AI) developments so they can reassess the role of education and prepare graduates for an evolving job market.

“Artificial intelligence doesn’t grow linearly, it develops exponentially. At first, progress might seem slow, but it can shift very rapidly,” Christie confirmed in Jakarta on Wednesday.

She emphasized higher education institutions must understand the exponential trajectory to anticipate technological shifts and re-evaluate their role.

According to her, universities must formulate strategies to adapt to technological changes presented by AI developments, including taking a fresh look at their role in education and knowledge creation.

This is crucial to ensure students do not only simply retrieve information through AI, she added, but can synthesize and connect it to address real-world problems.

“We must collectively reflect on our role when creating knowledge, our purpose in imparting it, and whether we are still capable of curating knowledge effectively. These are the critical questions we need to prepare for,” Christie said.

She also highlighted the potential decline of entry-level jobs, as many tasks traditionally assigned to junior staff could be automated by AI at a lower cost.

The shift makes mapping workforce requirements and graduate competencies increasingly vital.

Such mapping helps assess how well graduates’ skills align with industry demands, while identifying core competencies that need reinforcement and addressing any disconnect between graduate numbers and actual job market demand.

The effort must involve universities and leverage existing frameworks to streamline data collection.

As a practical step, Christie proposed developing a standardized survey to map out Indonesia’s human resource landscape.

The survey design could incorporate insights from previous studies to ensure a more comprehensive mapping.