Insightful SAS21 project steering committee meeting
On April 7, the SAS 21 steering committee gathered to discuss the progress in the dairy and poultry pilot studies running in Indonesia. Participants included representatives from industry leaders, the Ministries of Education and Agriculture, and IPB University, Maastricht School of Management, and Aeres University of Applied Sciences.
Broadly speaking, the steering committee is responsible for providing strategic leadership, orientation and policy guidance to ensure stakeholder alignment. In particular, the aim is to facilitate cooperation between the Indonesian agricultural educational system, the responsible government bodies and the private sector – especially in the domains of poultry and dairy. As such, the steering committee functions as a facilitator for an enduring project impact by considering important issues such as government policies and regulations, overall economic conditions, financials and curriculum certification.
The main objectives of the most recent steering committee meeting were to discuss:
- Progress in the dairy and poultry education curricula currently under development
- The state of the roadmaps detailing challenges and opportunities in dairy and poultry
- Recent advances in the pilot project in the dairy and poultry sector
- COVID-19 impact on project activities
- Planning of future project activities
Concerning the poultry and dairy curricula being developed in Dutch-Indonesian collaboration, clear steps have been undertaken to link the content to needs expressed by the industry. This is paramount to improve the vocational skills and employability of graduates. Further, an emphasis on entrepreneurship and sustainability considerations is included. Guided by Daan Westrik and Ernst Beitler from Aeres University of Applied Sciences, an enthusiastic team of lecturers and teachers is hard at work fleshing out the new curricula programs. The main challenge that still has to be met is ensuring the curricula are certified and harmonised with government education objectives.
The roadmaps describing the state of poultry and dairy industry in Indonesia are advancing, too. The aim hereby is to highlight challenges, opportunities, gender and animal welfare issues in both sectors to fill the gap that – to the best of our knowledge - no such documents exist to date. Importantly, the roadmaps link the industry level analysis to vocational education, discussing how the knowledge gap about cutting-edge development in dairy and poultry can be reduced for a more efficient and sustainable agricultural sector.
The two pilot projects currently running are also progressing smoothly: The dairy project (EMoww) is in the app development phase and the poultry project is honing the promised education curricula. A recent, well-received workshop has given progress a boost: Now certification and adjustments to the national education plans still require attention.
The lively and productive steering committee meeting closed with a commitment to regularly update the project members on additional developments regarding the possibility of a budget extension, roadmaps, pilot project progress and the finalisation of a study on gender in the poultry and dairy sectors.
About SAS21
The project is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and aims to improve demand-driven vocational training and education in poultry and dairy in Indonesia. The project is a cooperation between MSM, the Vocational School of IPB University and the Aeres Group.
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