Whisnu Thomas
IPMI International Business School
Amelia Naim Indrajaya
Keep this story going! Share below!
Unemployment Rate of Indonesia in 2016 is 7.02 million people, decrease from 7.45 million people in 2015. Even though that the number is decreasing, it is still considered high. Also the quality of the labor is not so high. According to Kementrian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan (2016), about 40% of workforce in Indonesia is Elementary School graduate. There are still many opportunities to improve Indonesia’s education that at the end improve the labor quality of Indonesia workforce.
Begin from compassion for orphans that have the willingness to get better education but cannot afford to pay the tuition and the vision to improve Indonesia, Mr Julianto founded a free school named “Selamat Pagi Indonesia (called SPI)”. This free school accepts only for Senior High School Student to develop them to be able to work after graduated. Only orphans that have no resources to pay tuition are eligible to register to SPI.
This school opened in 2007 and has only has 27 students, with all the diversity (40% Muslim, 20% Catholic, 20% Christian, 10% Hindu, 10% Buddhist and from all over Indonesia from Aceh to Papua). SPI found students by searching to Orphanage and networking with religion leader. As Mr Julianto passions for improvement for Indonesia, Mr Julianto’ effort is not limited only by giving education, but also creating jobs for the graduated student that has no family or job to do. Currently 70% of them has gone back to their hometown, work for a company, or get foster parents to help them continue study in a higher degree, but 30% of them work for SPI. SPI helps them to be able to create their own start-up business and helps them to make it grow. Currently SPI has 8 line of businesses (Restaurant, Food Production, Merchandise, Tour & Travel, Show & Entertainment, Agriculture, Farms, Hotel) with about 40 students as the employees. Those 40 graduated students have many different roles from Directors, Commissioners, Manager, to Applicator. About the revenue, Mr Agus said "They create their own target revenue and try to fulfill it every year. In the last year, in total SPI also has revenue for about 17 billion. This year they target to get revenue of 35 billion".
Since the purpose of this school is to improve the skills of the student so that they are able to get good job after graduation, this school teaches the student with experiential learning. This school has an area of 16 hectares that have so many places for the student to learn. Within the 16 hectares, SPI only has 2 classrooms. Student can study everywhere, emphasized to think more creative and action based rather than only get the theory. Students also educated by being involved in the line of business that run by students graduating from SPI. For example, as the the stage performer. Many students that has passion in the the stage performance can join as the performer and perform when there are guests coming to SPI.
To improve the experience of learning, SPI also sends the students or the graduated students that work in SPI abroad to places like Singapore, Hongkong, Europe, and US. After going abroad, the students have assignment to make something new in SPI, inspired by their experience.
In summary, this free school not only giving quality education for orphans, but also jobs. This is a new approach that has never been done in Indonesia. This approach is beneficial for Sustainable Growth in Indonesia by improving education and creating jobs.
With the mindset of giving quality education and jobs, unlike Businesses that do social thing (CSR) to improve the company, SPI has the opposite approach which is doing social things which is resulting into unlimited new business opportunities.
Currently in Indonesia, many people do not have the opportunity to get a proper education. Also for those who get an education it is still hard to find jobs and many of them are unemployed. Normally, only government and big companies that have willingness to help them with programs and CSR are hiring. SPI is different, since SPI manages the school by themselves with limited resources without any funding from government or big companies. This new approach of SPI creates new business model, which links education and business at the same time. The graduated students will run the business, and the profit from the business used to increase the quality and size of the free education. This way, in the long run, many more people can get the benefit from the free education, and the organization also afford to give a larger and better service due to the profit from the business. As the multiplier effect, if there are new schools using the same business model, then education level in Indonesia will increase significantly and the number of unemployment will decrease also significantly.
One of the important things is about the students. The great business model in SPI will be useless if the students cannot enjoy the process of education or feeling abused in their job. The fact is, they are not. They enjoy the process because there are so many activities that they can choose according to their passion. The education process is experience based so it’s not boring for them and also useful in everyday life and the job they want to work later.
Students also feel grateful that SPI is facilitating spiritual activity. There are 5 location in SPI to do spiritual activities according to 5 religions recognized in Indonesia. Every morning they split into 5 areas according to their religion and do the spiritual activity together with their friend with the same religion. In this case, SPI not only giving knowledge and skills, but also touching their heart and remind them to always be a good person.
Currently they have 8 lines of business with the graduated students as the head and directors of the business itself but it will always grow as long as the education has high quality.
From the establishment since 2007, currently SPI has 80 students per generation, with more than 300 students having graduated from SPI with 40 students working in SPI with their own Start Up Business.
All the graduated students not only have the knowledge, but also have learnt the ability to work. This ability is resulting into 8 lines of business in SPI and 5 supporting division (HR, Multimedia, Marketing, Finance, Purchasing). Some of them have become the Director of their own business.
With its business model, SPI can get higher revenue each year from the growing of existing business and also from the new business that are created every year.
SPI Inspires many people:
1. Citizen. SPI reminds all citizens to have more education. Have no money to pay the tuition is not a reason to stop education.
2. Businessman. SPI stated to businessman that have the heart to do social things and passion to improve Indonesia that creating social organization not always become a cost, but can be a very good revenue streams if the business model has the uniqueness to create revenue streams.
3. Indonesia. If many businessman do more social things like SPI and many citizen more concern about education, then Indonesia will have a better quality workforce which in the end will resulting in a better Indonesia in all area such as Political, Economy, Social, Infrastructure, Technology, etc.
Get stories of positive business innovations from around the world delivered right to your inbox.
Agus Setiadi, Sekretaris Yayasan Selamat Pagi Indonesia / Director of Transformer Center
