Enhancing the competitiveness of skilled construction workers through collaborative education and training

Professionalism of construction workers is one of the keys to the success of infrastructure development projects. The professionalism of the workforce is demonstrated through the possession of expertise competence certificate (SKA) and/or certificates of skills (SKT) issued formally through competency tests by the National Construction Cervices Development Agency (LPJKN). The magnitude of the national skilled manpower needs has not been able to meet the availability of professional workforce. Strategies to develop the quality of resources require sufficient information on the characteristics of the resources themselves, facilities, constraints, stakeholder support, regulations, and socioeconomic as well as cultural conditions. The problems faced by Indonesia in improving the competitiveness of skilled construction workers are (1) how the level of professionalism of skill workers in construction field, (2) what the constrains on improving the quality of skilled construction workers,and(3) how the appropriate model of education and training skillfull construction work. The study was designed with quantitative and qualitative approaches. Quantitative methods were used to describe the profile of sklill constructions worker. Qualitative methods were used toidentify constraintsin improving the qualityof skilled labor, as well as formulate a viable collaborative education and training model for improving the quality of skill labor. Data were collected by documentation, observation, and interview. The result of the study indicate theat (1) the professionalism knowledge of skilled constructions worker are in still low condition, (2) the constrain faced in developing the quality of skilled construction labor cover economic and structural constrains, and (3) collaborative eduction and training model can improve the quality ods skilld labor contructions.