By: Jennie Gutierrez
May 8, 2015
Today in Wakulla, a group of Indonesian educators got a taste of Florida.
The group is in the United States to observe and learn more from our system of community colleges. Back home in Indonesia, they are establishing over 350 of their own versions of community colleges, which they call community academies, for workforce training and programs designed to suit local industries.
Today they visited TCC Environmental Institute and got a look at the school’s newly established aquaculture program. The program was of particular interest to the Indonesian educators because they too have a lot of seafood harvesting and processing, and want to learn how to use that to their student’s advantage.
Program coordinators say that Florida and Indonesia have more in common than you may think.
"What's really exciting and interesting in this program is it's teaching people to make their own jobs, not just to look for jobs, but to go in to business for themselves, and small business for themselves, and I that's something very relevant for this group," says Dr. Jeffrey Milligan of FSU's Learning Systems Institute.
After checking out the aquaculture, the group enjoyed some fresh seafood, Florida style, at Posey’s in Panacea.
The group will be here in Tallahassee for five more weeks before returning to Indonesia. They say by establishing these schools they hope to bridge the education gap in Indonesia.