Indonesian Migrant
Workers: Economic Development, Mobile Phone Technology and Distance Education
(Antonius Tanan)
UCEC (University of Ciputra Entrepreneurship Center) for the last 2 years
has been providing entrepreneurship trainings for Indonesian Women Migrant
Workers (IWMWs) in Singapore and Hongkong. More than 1.500 IWMWs has attended
the trainings and they all work as domestic helpers and live inside the house
of the employers. As a trainer for this program I found out the enthusiasm of
IWMWs in learning and changing their future even when they only can have one-day
off in a week. They can only attend the trainings on Saturdays (Hongkong) or
Sundays (Hongkong and Singapore). Acquiring new skill and knowledge is an
important strategy of economic development, however, as full time domestic helpers they
have to live in the employer house and practically work more than 40 hours a
week. It is almost impossible for them
to enroll into a conventional bricks and mortals educational institutions. The progess of communication technology and
the availability of Distance Education for them will certainly open a new door
of opportunity for the IWMWs to achieve a new level of economic development.
The Trend of Women Migrant Workers
According to WIEGO or Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and
Organizing[1], for
over the past three decades, the number of of women
among international migrants has increased dramatically. Approximately half of the estimated 200
million migrants worldwide are women and mostly work as domestic helpers and Asia
is a large source of international migrants working as domestics both within
Asia and beyond. In the mid-2000s, about 6.3 million Asian migrants were
legally working and residing out of their mother land. Three countries become
the biggest sources, they are Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka. Women
migrants mostly work as a domestic helpers and they make up 60-80 per cent of
registered migrants. On top of that number United Nations Population Fund
(2006) predicted there were about 1.2 million illegal migrants in the region
and many of them working as domestic helpers.
Mr
Jumhur Hidayat the Chief of the National Placement and Protection of Indonesian
Migrant Workers or Badan Nasional Penempatan dan Perlindungan
Tenaga Kerja Indonesia (BNP2TKI) stated in
October 2009, that there were about 6 millions Indonesian Migrant Workers
and in the year 2010 they could send US$ 10 billion to their family in Indonesia.[2] There was a significant increase compared to the year of
2006. In 2006 they sent USD 5,6 billion, in the
year 2007, it was about USD 6,0
billion, then it reached USD 6,6 billion in the year 2008. The number of IWMWs is about 69% of Indonesian Migrant Workers and
the money they sent contributed to 22% of Indonesian foreign
exchanges[3]. The 6 million of Indonesian Migrant Workers have created
an important economic value for the government and their family but the social
cost also exists.
They IWMWs usually come from poor families with limited
education. The Indonesian monetary crisis in the year 1997
and 1998 had trigerred more people to leave the country and work abroad. At
that time the economic chaos had forced many people out of their jobs and at the same time there was a dramatic increased
of USD exchange to Indonesia local currency (IDR). Before mid 1997 1 USD was about IDR 2,000 but
in the mid 1998 it jumped to be above IDR 15,000. Suddenly the income in
foreign currency is much more valuable than the local currency.
Many women from poor families were forced
to work abroad to
support the financial needs of the
family and
they became
the family bread winner by working overseas. The people of Indonesia and the nation admitted the
important role of IWMWs, the remittance sent to the family has supported the family education,
family health service, housing, and household goods for the family. However, there is a big question of the
sustainability of this welfare. There are at least two problems. Firstly, most
of the IWMWs, due to their lack of
education on financial literacy, can not
manage their money well. One of my trainees ever shared to me that before the
entrepreneurship training the habit of using the money had been: Send (to the
Family), Spend (for the necessity goods in the host country) and Self (self
enjoyment). There was no Saving for the future. Secondly, they are really occupied by day to
day household chores and they use the day-off just to rest and relax. As a
result, most of them do not have a good plan for their own future. They do not
know until when they have to work abroad and do the 3Ds Job (Dirty, Difficult,
Dangerous). On top of that, for those
who are married, they have to leave the husband and their children in the
homeland. As a result, at present millions of children in Indonesia are
motherless kids.
The Handbook on Domestic Worker
Rights across Asia (http://www.apwld.org/pdf/Advance%20Domestic%20Workers%20Rights%2065-85.pdf)
published by Asia Pacific Forum
on Women, Law and Development (APWLD)
wrote some important facts:
- “Domestic work” in Asia, as with the rest of the
world, is an industry dominated by women.
- In fact, up to 90% of domestic helpers are female
and domestic work is now the most common occupation for women in the
region: “employment in private households accounts for about one-third of
all female employment in Asia.”
- Domestic work is also one of the largest drivers
of female labour migration in the world.
- Women from Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Sri
Lanka, India and Bangladesh are commonly employed in the wealthier Asian
countries of Malaysia, Singapore, HongKong, Japan and Taiwan.
- Recent surveys have revealed that more than 90
percent of the 240,000 domestic workers in Malaysia are Indonesians
- Between 2000 and 2003, an average of 79 per cent
of all migrants leaving Indonesia to work abroad were women
Eni
Lestari, one of the writers of the handbook, a Domestic Worker and Domestic
Worker Rights Activist, who is also the President of the Association of
Indonesian Migrant Workers Association in Hong Kong (ATKIHK) described her past
experiences:
“Seven simple words, yet they describe me. I am a domestic worker. Like
many of my sisters and brothers, I was forced to leave my country and my family
to engage in work that is widely considered as a “3D” job – dirty, dangerous
and difficult. I have also been through the harrowing experience of getting
victimized by overcharging, underpayment and denial of rest days. I have
experienced the vulnerability brought about by being a live-in domestic worker;
the insecurity perpetrated by policies that make domestic workers powerless and
voiceless; the lack of services of governments to those in distress; and the
deficient mechanisms that are supposed to protect the human, labour and gender
rights of domestic workers.”
Distance Education as A Solution
Distance Edducation certainly can offer an important
solution for IWMWs. According to US Journal Academic (2011), Distance Education
features
a number of advantages, they are:
- Accessibility for those
living away from the training center
- No waste of time or other
resources in transport, commuting to a central location for each class
- Flexibility to study in any
convenient location with an Internet connection
- Self-paced learning:
- Quickly browse materials that
have already mastered, and concentrate time and effort in areas
containing new information and / or skills
- Study materials at a
personal speed and intensity, without having to wait for slower pace of
the average classroom
- Flexibility to join conversations
in the bulletin board discussion areas at any hour, and to review
classmates' comments since the previous visit
- Just-in-time learning; more
opportunities to study the most current material available
- Flexibility for those with
irregular work schedules
- Accessibility for those with
restricted mobility (e.g., handicapped, injured, elderly)
- Accessibility for those with
family responsibilities (e.g., parents with young children at home)
Distance Education has its own unique advantages and
according to Moore (2005) and also the
report of the Unesco (2002) on OPEN AND DISTANCE EARNING TRENDS, POLICY AND STRATEGY CONSIDERATIONS presented that distance education can meet specific needs
of learners and in the case of IWMWs it can serve the specific needs of IWMWs:
- Increase access and
flexibility as well as the combination of work and education
- providing opportunities for
updating skills
- improving the cost
effectiveness of educational resources
- delivering educational campaigns
to this specific target audiences
- providing emergency training
for key target groups
- expanding the capacity for
education in new subject areas
- balancing inequalities of
education between different socio economic group.
And
for the employers:
- offers high quality and usually cost effective
professional development in the workplace.
- allows upgrading of skills, increased
productivity and development of a new learning culture.
For
our government:
- increase the capacity and cost effectiveness of
education and training systems
- reach target groups with limited access to
conventional education and training
- support and enhance the quality and relevance of
existing educational structures
- ensure the connection of educational institutions
and curricula to the emerging networks and information resources
- promote innovation and opportunities for lifelong
learnin
Education for the IWMWs
I found out in my training that most of IWMWs did not
have a life plan, most of them just had a very basic education or educated in a
small town or even from remote villages and they never got a proper life skill
training. Ideally, every IWMW should
define their life plan before they go abroad. For women with the family,
especially, they have to put working abroad as a temporary work and use the
opportunity living abroad to enhance their skills and knowledge in order to
create a new and better future. Living abroad as a domestic helper certainly is
not their dream job. As Djelantik (2011)
stated: “Indonesian
women migrant workers are mostly uneducated and have no option rather than
working as domestic servant or other low income jobs (cleaning service, waiter,
or in some cases, prostitutes) under poor working conditions”.
The IWMWs distance learning
program can provide three learning objectives to serve the future of the IWMWs,
they are Continuing Education, Employability and Entrepreneurship.
Firstly is Continuing Education. This is a formal education
route as many of the IWMWs have not finished basic education and some of them want
to finish higher education. The Continuing Education services provide a formal
national education in a distance. By doing this they can earn a formal degree
while working abroad. Secondly is Employability. It is a service to help the
IWMWs to improve their skill and knowledge to enable them to do a better job in
the future in their homeland or in the host country. It is more a vocational
training as it can be closely related to their present daily work or the future
work they want to have. For example, they can learn from a distance certificated
training on early childhood education, office administration, elderly care, customer
service, teacher education, etc. ILO
(2008) broadly defined employability to encompass all of
the skills, knowledge and competencies that enhance a worker’s ability to
obtain and retain a job, cope with change and enter the labour market more
easily at different periods of the life cycle. This shows us that there are many training subjects needed by the market
place. It is why ‘Distance Education’ will become increasingly more important
in the 21st century because changes occur in a more tremendous speed.
Thirdly is in the area of Entrepreneurship. It is a
series of training to prepare them to be able to start their own business in their
homeland. It should include the training of opportunity identification,
marketing and selling skill, creativity and innovation and simple business
plan. Distance Education on this subject will offer a great help for the IWMWs,
because they do not have entrepreneur family background.
The
ICT and Distance Education for IWMW
The
IWMWs have crucial time limitations to continue their education. Firstly they
do not have a luxury to be a full time student who can go to school on a daily
basis. Secondly, they have a very short period of time to study every day.
However, the progress of ICT have opened a new door of learning opportunity.
The present smart mobile phone is capable of
handling many things. It can send
messages, perform video-conferencing, and get connected with people from almost anywhere in the world at
anytime. Mobile users now have easy and trouble-free
access to everything which they would like to do in daily life. The smartphones
even can take over the functions of computers
and laptops. An access
to learning now is in the hands of the IWMWs.
The following three facts actually
offer advantages for the IWMWs compare to those living in their homeland. Firstly, they
work in country more developed than Indonesia and these countries usually have a
high Networked
Readiness Index (NRI). NRI is an important metric in the
World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Network Report. It examines how prepared countries are to use ICT
effectively on three dimensions: the general business, regulatory and infrastructure
environment for ICT. It measures the readiness of the three key
stakeholder groups (society
individuals, businesses and governments) to use
and benefit from ICT; and the actual usage of the latest information and
communication technologies available. The IWMWs live and work in a
country that provide an excellent infrastructure to connect with many learning
resources and also provide them a great opportunity to learn in a distance. The following is the NRI table of 20 developed
countries.
Source:
http://facweb.cs.depaul.edu/yele/Course/IS540/Global-project/2011/Austria/Recommendations.html
The
second advantage of being IWMWs is that they live and work in countries that
have lowest ICT price. It is also a good
opportunity to get valuable information and to do Distance Education in a more
efficient way. The following graph shows that Singapore and Hongkong have a
lower rate of ICT price compare to many
other countries.
Source:
http://www.marketingcharts.com/topics/asia-pacific/global-digital-divide-unchanged-since-2002-8260/international-telecommunication-union-itu-united-nations-economies-lowest-ict-prices-2008jpg/
Communication
Technology for the IWMWs
Even though most of the IWMWs are from small towns and
villages, all of them have mobile phones. From my experience dealing with them, I found
out most of them have facebook accounts and they connect to the internet
through mobile phones. Mobile phones have become the “standard device” of
IWMWs. The penetration of the mobiles
has reached even people from poor family in less developed countries. The ITU (International Telecommunication Union) had predicted that mobile phone subscriptions could reach 5 billion subscribers by the end of 2010 – it was an increase of 400 million more subscriptions compare to 2009. In the year
2009, 4.6 billion subscriptions were
reported globally
and it represented a 67% penetration rate.
Source:
http://www.unwiredview.com/2010/02/24/mobile-phone-subscriptions-may-top-5-billion-in-2010/
However,
for a more effective learning process, I think mobile phone is not enough for
the IWMWs. They may check the assignment
using the internet connection through mobile phone but writing a paper will be
more convenient by laptops or at least tablet PCs. Mobile phone can be an important door for them
to experience Distance Education for the first time. By connecting their mobile
phone to learning resources, the IWMWs can utilize their time while in the
transportation or waiting the children at the school or even while queueing in
the supermarket.
Conclusions
I
have four conclusions. Firstly, Distance Education certainly will offer a
significant change for the future of millions migrant workers all over the
world, provided that specific programs and approaches are available. Secondly, the involvement of the host governments
is a must. A national regulation to allow migrant workers to have an day-off
for learning and training must be in place. Government of Hongkong is a role
model of a host country for the IWMWs. The
government has a regulation that all migrant workers in Hongkong must have one day
off in a week. Without this kind of regulation the IWMWs will not have a sufficient
time to improve themselves for the improvement of their future. Thirdly,
the campaign and promotion of the importance of learning must be done by
Indonesian government to all the IWMWs. Many of them grow up in a family that do not
appreciate good education. Fourthly, the
introduction of user friendly hardware and software or subsidized tablet PCs or
laptops for those enrolling in the Distance learning must be considered by
Indonesian government to encourage them to learn.
References
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[2]
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