Accelerating Work Achievement and Readiness for Employment (AWARE3)

Challenge

Indonesia’s economy and demand for labor is evolving, with employment shifting away from rural agricultural jobs to urban service-oriented jobs. Consequently, there is a need to equip the Indonesian economy to effectively prepare for the transformation of labor as emerging technologies play a more significant role in the workplace. The Government of Indonesia believes that through workforce development programs, sekolah menengah kejuruan (SMKs; vocational schools) will play a pivotal role in preparing the current and future workforce.

Funded as a Global Development Alliance between the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and J.P. Morgan, the AWARE3 project will improve the employment pathways for SMK-enrolled youth through soft skills training, enhanced teacher training, and meaningful school-industry partnerships that lead to work-based learning opportunities. Activities take place remotely, although in a dynamic way that facilitates active learning. Partnering with the Jakarta Education Agency, Matata, and a host of local public and private sector partners, the project aims to prepare Indonesian youth for the digital economy.

Key Activities

AWARE3 activities include the following:

Develop and adapt EDC’s Work Ready Now (WRN) soft skills training modules to train and build the capacity of school managers and teachers.
Implement WRN skills training curriculum through virtual classrooms for SMK youth in grade 11 to learn and improve their technical and soft skills to prepare them for the digital economy.
Develop a mentoring and coaching plan to engage school managers and teachers throughout the WRN implementation process.
Collaborate with private sector partners to develop a virtual work-based learning toolkit. Design and implement virtual work-based learning and project-based internships to nurture work readiness.
Facilitate interactions between the education sector and the private sector around timely workforce development and employability.

Impact

Throughout the life of the project, AWARE3 aims to:

Train 40 coaches/school coordinators in the adapted AWARE3 program
Train over 200 teachers in the adapted AWARE3 WRN curriculum
Facilitate the development of over 80 Google classrooms created for teacher‑student engagement on soft skills for the digital economy
Enroll and train over 5,000 youth in WRN technical and soft skills
Engage 60 private sector partners through virtual work-based learning, internships, and other collaboration and learning opportunities