Coordinating Social Empowerment Minister Muhaimin Iskandar (left) and Migrant Workers Protection Minister Mukhtarudin. — The Jakarta Post
JAKARTA: Coordinating Social Empowerment Minister Muhaimin Iskandar has announced that the government aims to send 500,000 skilled workers overseas under the SMK Go Global programme.
Fifteen trillion rupiah to 25 trillion rupiah in budget spending has been earmarked for the purpose.
“The programme will begin in 2026, with preparations starting this year. First, all vocational schools (SMKs) must begin preparing from the upstream side.
“On the downstream side, we are strengthening partner countries and improving placement mechanisms and systems, so they operate more effectively and quickly,” Muhaimin said after a coordination meeting on the SMK Go Global programme at the ministry’s offices in Central Jakarta on Tuesday.
He added that the programme would involve training to help students meet minimum competency standards for working overseas, including language proficiency.
Several destination countries were currently offering strong demand, including Japan, South Korea, Germany, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Turkiye, he noted.
The targeted fields of work reflect overseas labour needs, with the most in demand sectors including welding, hospitality and caregiving.
He added that government subsidies under the programme would cover training for technical and language skills.
Through partnerships with SMKs, students would be trained from the outset to meet the minimum competency standards.
“For example, in Japan, welding-track SMK students should already adopt the N4 level of Japanese language proficiency starting in Grade 10. N4 is the minimum requirement to work in Japan.
“This should be adopted directly, no need for alternative curricula. Preparation must begin early, so migrant-track classes develop language skills from the start,” he said.
The programme will be open to junior high, senior high and vocational school graduates with no age limit. As an initial kick-off, the government will send 500 prospective workers who have completed training to Slovakia, Turkey and Japan.
“Some have already completed their training and will depart at the end of this year. Registration for the 2026 intake will open at the end of 2025,” he said.
Migrant Workers Protection Minister Mukhtarudin said for the batch to be dispatched in December 2025, training and deployment would use the migrant workers ministry’s internal budget of one billion rupiah, focusing on welders and several other sectors.
“At present, 4,600 prospective migrant workers have been recorded, but the first phase of SMK Go Global will include only 500 people. In 2026, we will push for the full 500,000 target set by President Prabowo Subianto,” he said at the same event.
The government plans to collaborate with various partners, including multinational companies from various industries, as well as labour training institutions and associations with experience in upgrading the skills of workers headed overseas.
Associations and placement companies with experience deploying Indonesian workers abroad will also be involved.
Based on Indonesia’s Migrant Worker Placement and Protection data for January through September 2025, total placement services reached 196,355 workers, of whom 87,899, or roughly 45%, were high school or vocational school graduates.
The largest placement destinations were Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore. — The Jakarta Post/ANN
