REVITALISING CULINARY EDUCATION IN INDONESIA

Abstract

Indonesia is a very large country with great diversity, which is shown in cultural heritages, arts and craft as well in culinary creations. However, so far the richness of Indonesian culinary is still not well recognized in the world of tourism. To promote Indonesian culinary in a wider scope, professional people who prepare and produce food are required. There is no doubt that high standard food products can only be produced, developed and marketed by professional food handlers, and these professionals can be generated by vocational schools at all level. However many culinary schools in Indonesia educate and train more on European or Western food, rather on Indonesian food. This can be seen in the course contents or curricula in vocational schools, at all level. This paper attempts to raise attention and awareness of educators of vocational schools in Indonesia, to give larger portion for Indonesian culinary in their course contents. Thus the curricula needs to be examined and redisgned to meet industrial requirements. The competencies of culinary teachers also need to be improved, both in educational degree and in field experiences. School’s facilities to educate and train students in Indonesian culinary also to be improved and match industrial standards. The budget for culinary education and training is also shortly discussed in this paper. These efforts given to raise Indonesian culinary with the hope that students will able to promote Indonesian food both in national and in international market. As a conclussion, it is suggested that attention should be given by vocational schools to emphasize in Indonesian culinary, if the products want to be able to compete in the world. Curricula in culinary must be designed to adapt with market and industry needs, especially to indulge foreign tourists. Schools have to improve the competencies of teachers and lecturers and facilities must be adequate to produce and create good Indonesian culinary products. Although this paper was written mainly based on literature research, due of the limititations of resources and time, but hopefully the ideas behind it can be useful to the vocational schools. Some data in this paper was gained from observations done by the writer, and thus some data presented would be rather subjective. However, it is a hope that this paper will able to contribute to the culinary education schools at all level. In the future, there is a hope to get opportunity to conduct a deeper research on the similar subject. Keywords: Indonesian culinary, professional food handlers, vocational schools, competencies of teachers and lecturers, culinary education facilities, culinary education budget.