Indonesia still lacks of archivists. The need for archivists reaches as high as 143,630 people while the current figure is just 3,241 or 2.25%. As high as 140,389 people (97,75%) are thus required to fill the need at government archiving agencies as well as private organisations.
This was said by Head of National Archives (ANRI), Dr Mustari Irawan, M.PA., in a Seminar on National Archiving 2017, organised by Archiving diploma programme of UGM Vocational School on Wednesday (10/5) at UGM Graduate School.
Mustari mentioned the lack of archivists in the country was due to, among others, the low interest, among the people to take the employement as archivist. There is still some negative assumptions that this occupation is ‘outcasts’.
Recognition to archiving human resource is still low in terms of incentives for special profession like archivist managers. The profession is seen as unpromising.
“Indonesian human resource in archiving is not yet fully recognised as a profession, making it difficult to progress like any other field,” he said.
Archiving lecturer, Drs. Machmoed Effendhie, M.Hum., said currently Indonesia has no National Work Competence Standard (SKKNI) for archiving. There is only the standard for functional archivist position. To draft such required standard ideally needs stakeholders, such as government, association of archiving profession, higher education, certification agency, and experts.
In his views, the SKKNI has to be in line with the international archiving standards, which is important to have so that acceptance and trust levels of this profession in Indonesia regionally and internationally will also increase.
Meanwhile, Head of Archiving and Library of Central Java Province, Muhammad Masrofi, S.SoS., M.Si., revealed the importance of archives. Archives are evidence of national responsibility, accountability, organisational memory, and state collective evidence.
He pointed out the example of the loss of Sipadan and Ligitan islands in 2002 to Malaysia which were due to the lack of documents and archives whereas Malaysia had such documents in English on the wildlife of those islands. Hence, it is important to apply the right archiving management.