Karirku.id - by ICE Institute, is a career guidance platform aimed to bridge the university-to-work transitions in Indonesia. The ICE Institute itself is consortium of public and private universities that was established under the Decree of Director General of Higher Education No. 101/E/KPT/2021. It is formed as a government led initiative to modernize the delivery of world-class and accessible online courses for all. The Universitas Terbuka (UT) is tasked to bootstrap the operations and host the secretariat of the ICE Institute.
The initiative represents a unique collaboration between government and academia, bringing together 14 public and private universities in a coordinated response to Indonesia's educational modernization needs. The consortium members include:
These member universities and association are the initial course providers of the ICE Institute. As of today, there are 33 universities across Indonesia and 10 international partners that provide their online courses in the platform. The total number of participating universities (who sent their student to take the courses at the ICE Institute) is around 800 institutions.
Since its inception, the ICE Institute has maintained a crucial partnership with various national, regional, and international partners. Various supports and assistances have been provided by international agencies such as The Asian Development Bank (ADB), The World Bank, UNESCO-ICHEI, as well international partners such as Tsinghua University and XuetangX, Coursera, edX, among others.
The ICE Institute has been operating as a quasi self-organizing institution since inception. Despite hosted and bootstrapped by the Universitas Terbuka, its unique consortium-based governance means that the ICE Institute is more or less belong to the larger public stakeholders in Indonesia. The blockchain-enabled digital credential of the ICE Institute has been contributed to fulfilling Policy Action 2.8 under the Policy Based Loan of the Government of Indonesia to the Asian Development Bank. The Karirku career guidance platform is expected to be the contribution in meeting the Policy Action 3.8 under the subsequent Policy Based Loan.
University-to-Work Transition Initiatives
The ICE Institute and its consortium member has been progressively thinking the initiatives to improve the university-to-work transition in Indonesia. In the first year of operations, the ICE Institute has been conducted – probably – one of the first and most comprehensive Skills Demand Analysis study in Indonesia. It collected and analyzed the jobs and skills taxonomy from major job board providers in Indonesia and draw the several interesting insights that were beneficial for the ICE Institute consortium members to further improve their course offerings. The initiative also complemented with a Students vs Skill Profile Survey for several study programs that aimed to further understand the gaps between student profile and the job market demand.
The ICE Institute also working with several other universities beyond its consortium members to develop a Microcredential Program in Game Development. The Program was developed under the request and inquiry of the Government to establish a structured program to increase the number of talents in Indonesian game industry. The Program was further offered under the Merdeka Belajar program and also utilizing the Solo Techno Park as the Game Development Center of this program.
Currently the ICE Institute is also offering several Microcredential program that are based on series of discussions and FGDs with both the industry and academia.
Following several stakeholders and policy dialogues as well as the results of the ICE Institute's collaborative research program, the Karirku Career Guidance Platform was planned and then established. The Karirku took the position not to reinvent the wheel and not to overlap with the existing career guidance offerings, especially by the consortium members as well as other players in the market. The main objective, aligned with ICE Institute's core offering, is to improve the university-to-work transition by offering several reskilling and upskilling courses to the students and recent graduates. The Platform employs several variations of artificial intelligence technology to analyze the skill demands based on the job postings in the market. The results were further cross analyzed with the local socio, economic, and demographical characteristics that provide unique insights for both the students and the universities.
While it is working with current players in providing human mentor services, ICE Institute is also developing AI-based career mentors to provide 24x7 and further personalized mentoring services for the students.
