Development from the Periphery

KOMPAS/KORNELIS KEWA AMA

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Achmad Fauzi, 27, and Vera Ertiana, 25, both from Surakarta, Central Java, work tirelessly with the residents of Padang Panjang village in East Alor district, Alor regency, in the border region in East Nusa Tenggara. Both are teachers on the front lines of the government’s program to develop the nation from its periphery.

SD Padang Panjang state elementary school has thatch roofing and wet and muddy soil as a floor, on which you can clearly see the footprints of children between 5 and 12 years old. The children living on the island on the Indonesia-Timor Leste border do not wear shoes or sandals to school.

When the Kompas team arrived to break ground on the construction of two elementary school buildings, funded from donations from Kompas readers through the Kompas Humanitarian Fund Foundation, at Padang Panjang village on Thursday (30/3/2017), the two teachers were among the hundreds of people attending the event. They led the 43 students of SD Padang Panjang, located some 5 kilometers from the groundbreaking site of the Timor Evangelical Christian Church (GMIT) elementary school in Sidomang hamlet.

Achmad Fauzi said he and Ertiana participated in the Undergraduates Teaching on Outlying, Frontier and Disadvantaged Regions (SM3T) program in Ngada regency, Flores Island. Afterward, both went home to Yogyakarta to take the teachers’ preparational training in 2013-2014.

“In 2015, we went to East Nusa Tenggara with 35 other colleagues. We have been placed at the Padang Panjang elementary school since then. The school has first grade up to a fifth grade and has 43 students. The sixth graders study at SD Katapisi elementary school some 10-km away from here,” said Fauzi, who was accompanied by Ertiana.

Fauzi and Ertiana serve as contracted teachers at SDN Padang Panjang. They stay at locals’ homes some 7-km away from the school. Every morning, both go to the school on motorbike that they bought in installments in late 2015. They have yet to pay the motorbike off. Every month, they have to pay Rp 750,000 (US$56.27) for the 2013 Yamaha Mio motorbike, which they bought for Rp. 17.5 million.

The couple is paid Rp 3 million each per month. They say the money is enough for them to live in the remote region. They get some of their daily needs, including fruits and vegetables, from around the school or from locals.

“One of the main difficulties is getting rice, side dishes, sugar, coffee, tea, cooking oil, kerosene, soap, toothpaste and other daily needs. Every two weeks, we have to go to Kalabahi some 70-km away to buy these things. Here, we have no kiosk or markets like in other regions,” Fauzi said.

The access road is in good condition, but there are a few potholes along the way. The number of potholes increase during the rainy season. Bringing daily needs from Kalabahi to Padang Panjang on motorbike can be especially challenging.

Sometimes, some of the purchased goods fall off the bike and get scattered on the road, or the motorbike runs out of gas, or Fauzi gets stuck in the rain on the way home. Once, Fauzi had to walk his motorbike, which was carrying purchased goods, on a 5-km uphill road as he got a flat tire.

The lack of cell service makes communication with outside regions difficult. Televisions rely on parabolic antennas but electricity is only on between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. Outages of up to four hours often occur.

Only one minibus serves the access road to Padang Panjang village. The bus serves the route between Kalabahi and Maritaing on the eastern end of Alor Island, directly facing Atauro Island in Timor Leste. The vehicle passes through Padang Panjang but is always filled with passengers from Kalabahi. Moreover, it rarely operates as it often breaks down.

To perform Friday prayers, Fauzi has to go to Kalabahi. There is no mosque in Padang Panjang as Fauzi and Ertiana are the only Muslims in the village.

Nevertheless, both said they had no intention of leaving the village behind. For them, teaching in the village is their duty and part of their calling to serve the nation on frontier and outlying regions. Becoming teachers is the dream of many Indonesians, including Fauzi and Ertiana.

Low wages

Ertiana said education in remote regions left a lot to be desired. Many school buildings were mere huts. Students rarely bathed or had breakfast before going to school. None of them wear school uniforms. Their parents often tell them to work on the fields, instead. Parents’ awareness of the importance of education is still low.

“However, we are here to give what we can. We are saddened that the children go to school without wearing shoes or sandals, their bare feet covered with mud up to their ankles all day long. Sometimes, the mud dries just stays on their feet if we do not ask them to wash their feet before entering the classroom,” she said.

The school currently has four emergency buildings with four rooms. One is for the teachers, one is shared between the first and second graders, one is shared between the third and fourth graders and one is for the fifth graders. Each room is 16 square meters.

East Alor district’s chief elementary school education superintendent, Aris Tarkus Malaikosa, said education in East Alorwas was deeply concerning. Many elementary school and junior high school graduates on the island cannot read, write or count.

Civil servant teachers are rarely present at schools. Many of them are often in Kalabahi to participate in official activities. One school commonly has one civil servant teacher serving as a principal. The rest of the teachers are locals that have passed the C Package equivalency exam who are paid between Rp 100,000 and Rp 200,000 per month. Payments are made every three months. Due to their non-contract status and low wage, they rarely teach at the schools.

East Alor district has 24 elementary schools with 170 teachers, seven junior high schools with 15 teachers, two high schools with 11 teachers and one vocational high school with six teachers. Each elementary school has between 50 and 200 students, each junior high school has between 30 and 100 students and each high school/vocational high school has between 30 and 80 students.