CTC organized a workshop on the finalization of seven new certification schemes for capacity-building to marine protected area (MPA) managers and personnel in Indonesia. These schemes will support the implementation of the MPA Personnel Capacity Building Roadmap 2020-2024 in Indonesia, while complementing three certification schemes for MPA professionals that have existed since 2015.

The workshop was held for five days in Bogor, from 28 March to 1 April 2022. It was attended by 13 writers and four supporting staff from various organizations, such as the Directorate of Marine Conservation and Biodiversity of Indonesian Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (KKHL MMAF), Indonesian Marine Professional Certification Institute (LSP K), TERANGI Indonesia, WWF Indonesia and Flora Fauna International (FFI).

This activity was a follow-up to an online competency certification training and assessment done in February 2022 for MPA personnel and managers in Bali, Maluku, and North Maluku. Five CTC staff participated in the assessment and were officially determined as competent at both expert and facilitator levels. Competent CTC staff were then involved in the workshop as writers.

The writers, also called the Committee of the Certification, worked in two steps. The first one was revising/improving documents, and the second step was validating the documents. All documents covered the certification schemes, plans of assessment and instruments of assessment.

The seven certification schemes are divided into three major areas. The first area is for the monitoring and evaluation of coastal resources which covers three schemes for the surveyor of coral cover data, surveyor of reef fish abundance and biomass data, and surveyor of social economic data. The second area is about outreach which consists of one scheme for outreach officers or field officers. The last area is about marine tourism that includes three schemes for tour leader on marine tourism, dive guide on marine tourism and surveyor of coral tourism attraction.

The legal basis for the creation of these seven certification schemes are the three Indonesian National Working Competency Standards (SKKNI), namely, the SKKNI No. 638 of 2016, the SKKNI No. 96 of 2018 and the SKKNI No. 99 of 2018. The last two SKKNI are initiated by CTC with the support from the USAID Sustainable Ecosystem Advanced (SEA) project.

With the availability of these new seven certification schemes, CTC has made its contribution to the implementation of the national MPA Capacity Building Roadmap as a Competency Assessment Center (TUK) in Indonesia. Officially published in 2020, the roadmap aims to achieve the optimum quantity and quality of MPA personnel in Indonesia through training or competency assessments, development of competency-based modules, and development of certification schemes.

After all these certification schemes were finalised, the LSP K will be requesting letters of support from some associations related to the areas of schemes.  The purpose of this is to fulfill the proposal, which will later be submitted to the National Professional Certification Agency (BNSP). Following this, the BNSP can issue the official licenses for all certification schemes right away.

“We hope that the licensing process can be completed in less than six months, so that the competency assessment can start by early 2023,” stated CTC Training Manager Silvianita Timotius.

Since 2012, CTC has been an Independent Marine and Fisheries Training Center (P2MKP) in Indonesia and has trained more than 5,500 people over the last decade. In 2015, CTC became a recognized TUK in Indonesia for marine sectors with nine competent assessors. CTC owns two pavilions at the Center for Marine Conservation in Sanur, Bali, that are utilised as training and competency assessment venues.

Photo credit: Nadia Qurotha/CTC