The improving welfare of teachers with the addition of professional allowances has driven high school graduates to pursue teaching and education at university. This has boosted the number of candidates vying for a spot in LPTK.
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JAKARTA, KOMPAS — The improving welfare of teachers with the addition of professional allowances has driven high school graduates to pursue teaching and education at university. This has boosted the number of candidates vying for a spot in teacher training centers (LPTK), but without any quality control.
The low quality of LPTKs affects the future of its graduates. At the Pangeran Dharma Kusuma Teaching and Education Science College (STKIP Padhaku) in Indramayu, West Java, for example, its graduates may only reach the level of non-permanent teachers.
On Friday (9/3), several alumna who are non-permanent teachers visited STKPI Padhaku in Segeran, Juntinyuat district, some 25 kilometers from the regency capital of Indramayu. They brought their certificates and ID cards. “I want to take the professional teaching course [PPG] but I can’t, because my [school] isn’t registered,” said Hidayat Risyandi, 28, a non-permanent teacher at SMAN 1 senior high school Gabuswetan, Indramayu.
The PPG is a certified professional course for teachers. Teachers with a PPG certificate are entitled to a professional allowance that is equal to their salary.
Hidayat said his school, STKIP Padhaku, was not on the list of schools qualified for the PPG. The school, which is located in the middle of farmland, was established in 2013 and has C-level accreditation. STKIP Padhaku hs 14 lecturers with master’s degrees and offers courses on teaching history, elementary, biology and economics.
That Friday, no learning took place. The lecture hall, with stained walls and damaged ceiling, remained locked. Only the administration office was open, serving the alumna who wanted to register for a PPG.
The issuance of Law No. 14/2005 on Teachers and Lecturers triggered the mushrooming of LPTK, followed with an oversupply of education graduates. The law guarantees better teacher welfare, stipulating salaries above the minimum wage. Teachers with a teaching certificate can earn salaries more than three times that of other civil servants.
Suryadi Ahmad, 45, a civil servant teacher in Palangkaraya City, Central Kalimantan, makes Rp 5 million in basic salary. With the PPG professional allowance, disbursed every three months, his income reaches Rp 15 million.
According to the Research, Technology and Higher Education Ministry, around 90 LPTK existed before the law took effect. After the law’s enactment in 2005, this figure had increased to 374 by 2012, followed by 381 in 2014 and then to 421 in 2016.
LPTK are institutes of higher learning, and were previously known as of Teacher Training Institutes, or IKIP.
Oversupply of graduates
The rapid growth of LPTKs caused an oversupply of education graduates. Each year, around 260,000 education graduates emerge from LPTK. However, only 27,000 graduates continue on to the PPG.
Most of the institutions that produce professional teachers do not have good accreditation. Only 18 LPTKs have A accreditation, while 81 LPTKs have B accreditation. As for the teaching programs, only 209 have A accreditation and 811 have B accreditation. In fact, teacher training programs comprise the majority of higher learning programs at universities in Indonesia, with 5,724 of 26,864 courses.
Around 1.2 million university students aspire to become teachers.
A mismatch also exists between the teachers most needed by schools and the programs offered at the LPTKs. The LPTKs offer a small number of programs for vocational school teachers, who are most in demand, while offering too many programs for other kinds of teachers.
For an example, there is already an oversupply of economics teachers, but the LPTKs continue to offer this program with large student enrollment. Contrarily, there is a high demand for art teachers, which stood at 3,801 teachers in 2017, but only 964 graduated as certified art teachers.
A study by the Research, Technology and Higher Education Ministry shows that the only two teaching programs that match the real demand among schools are mechanical engineering and anthropology.
The mismatch between the offered programs and actual demand risks creating a mismatch between teachers and the subjects they teach, as well as an increase in unemployed teaching graduates.
Shifria, who graduated as a chemistry teacher from the State University of Surabaya, said she had sent applications to several schools for teaching positions, but received no callback.
“I taught at a student learning center from 2012 to 2017... [where] I focused on guiding students on how to take the [national] exams. During my university studies, my focus was more on teaching the science,” she said.
Central Kalimantan’s Palangkaraya University teacher training department (FKIP) has around 7,000 students and nearly 1,000 graduates each year. However, not all of the graduates become teachers.
The PGRI University of Palembang, which opened an elementary teachers training program (PGSD) in 2017, is also flooded with students. When it opened, the program received 400 applications while it accepted only 200 students, said PGRI deputy rector of administration and staff Yasir Arafat.
Semarang is home to two large universities with education programs, Semarang State University and the Indonesian Teachers Association University of Semarang (UPGRIS), that produce thousands of graduates each year. However, nearly 80 percent of their graduates do not pursue the professional track.
At the Culture and Education Ministry, the secretary to the directorate general of teachers and teaching staff, Nurzaman, said the LPTKs greatly affected the quality of teachers.
The quality of teachers was assessed through the 2015 teacher competency exam on pedagogy and professional capacity, which saw an average score of only 56.69. The average score among elementary school teachers was the lowest at 54.33, while average score for senior high school teachers was the highest at 61.74.
The impact was also visible in the results of the 2015 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), with Indonesia ranking in the bottom 10 countries at 64 of 72 countries. Indonesian students are weak in languages, the sciences and math.