30 Nov New National Competency Standards Boosts Sustainable Marine Tourism in Indonesia’s Marine, Coastal, and Small Islands Protected Areas

The Indonesian Government, with the support of the Coral Triangle Center through USAID SEA Project and Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, took a step in having more effective MPA management through the provision of competent and standardized human resources throughout Indonesia, by developing the Indonesia National Competency Standards (SKKNI) and National Working Qualification (KKNI) in marine tourism and outreach management. Both SKKNI and KKNI have entered the final phase of validation of broader stakeholders, through conventions and consensus in Jakarta on November 27-30, 2017, to reach agreements.

The nature tourism has been one of the popular activities within marine protected areas in Indonesia and around the world. In 2016, Indonesia already established 17.98 million hectares of marine protected areas covering 165 locations, and is targeting to reach 20 million hectares by 2020. However, there is a need for more competent workforce in managing the tourism to minimize adverse impacts and maintain the area’s conservation functions not only for the environment, but for people who live around it.

The development of both SKKNI documents has been initiated since end of 2016 and have passed scores of assessments and examinations by range of experts, team of professionals in tourism industry as well as other stakeholders and institutions. Along with development of SKKNI documents, our team works on development of KKNI which serves as basis for career track qualification for those professionals with working experience to evaluate performance and to upgrade their qualification level.

Both documents have also been through internal validation by the competency standards committee of the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (MMAF) and external validation by the Ministry of Workforce. Prior to consensus and convention, the assigned SKKNI team worked on through series of writeshop and SKKNI pre-convention. The convention and consensus were attended by professional associations, hobbyist, practitioners, professional certification bodies, training institutions, and government institutions. The SKKNI convention and KKNI consensus are milestones achieved following series of crucial steps in developing SKKNI and KKNI.

In marine tourism, the SKKNI and KKNI provide competency units for 14 positions in 5 levels of job qualification. Moreover, in outreaching, it provides competency units for 6 positions in 4 levels of job qualification. The SKKNI will be officially legalized by the Ministry of Manpower Decree, while for KKNI will be legalized by the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries Decree.

The SKKNI and KKNI will serve as the basis for preparing further curriculum, syllabus and competency- based modules for training providers and certification body in the areas for marine tourism development and public outreach. For the business sectors, both documents will support workforce recruitment, performance appraisal, preparation of job description, and specific training. Ultimately, the people in the workforce will find SKKNI and KKNI most beneficial as benchmark of their competency and certified skills, which is essential for career development. These documents are important to improve the effectiveness of marine protected areas in Indonesia and marine tourism through improved manpower skills.

We hope that the new standards will ensure the fulfillment of competent human resources for better and sustainable management of marine conservation areas in Indonesia.