Quality of LPTK Graduates Substandard
The overabundance of education graduates that cannot be absorbed into the ranks of the teaching profession is not only due to the limited quota for civil servant teachers.
JAKARTA, KOMPAS — The overabundance of education graduates that cannot be absorbed into the ranks of the teaching profession is not only due to the limited quota for civil servant teachers. The main cause is the poor quality of education graduates.
Most graduates emerge from teacher training institutes (LPTK), most of which have C accreditation. Of the 421 LPTKs in the country, only 18 have A accreditation and 81 have B accreditation.
Based on data Kompas compiled on Monday (12/3), the low quality of LPTK graduates who are teachers will have an impact on learning quality at schools. This is evident from the results of the 2015 teacher competence tests, which recorded an average score of only 56.69. The subjects tested included pedagogy and skills in mastering teaching materials. Elementary school teachers had the lowest average score of 54.33, with high school teachers achieving the highest average score of 61.74.
The impact of the teacher’s quality was also evident in the 2015 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), a standardized test that ranked Indonesia among the bottom 10 countries, at 64 of 72 countries. Indonesian students have poor language, science and math skills.
Directorate General for Teachers and Education Personnel secretary Nurzaman confirmed Kompas\' observations in the field with the Culture and Education Ministry’s data.
One example is the Purnama Teacher Training and Education Institute (STKIP) in South Jakarta. The evening classes on Wednesday (7/3) should be held at 6:15 p.m.-9:00 p.m. in three classrooms. However, the lectures were cancelled due to heavy rain. "Because of the rain, no students have come," said Sumantri, assistant to the Purnama STKIP chairman of academics.
The University of Palangka Raya (UPR) in Central Kalimantan has no dedicated teaching laboratory for practical training. To work around this, the lecturers utilize their regular classrooms and students. Only one group of five to six students took the practical training class.
Fansy Jebatur, 21, a sixth-semester student in English Education Studies, said that sometimes, the lecturers combine two classes into one for daily learning activities, so that 60 students were in a single class. Ideally, one social science class should accommodate 40 students at most.
UPR quality assurance office chairman Petrus Poerwadi said that an LPTK should have a variety of facilities and special dormitories for teacher training students.
Still poor
Edi Mulyono, the Subdirectorate for Vocational Education and Profession head at the Research, Technology and Higher Education Ministry, admitted that the education students received through LPTK remained poor, particularly in science and the institutes’ lack of adequate facilities and infrastructure.
Association of Indonesian Education Graduates general chairman Sunaryo Kartadinata said the number of LPTKs and graduates had to be checked immediately. Special criteria on a student’s educational background needed to be implemented as a control mechanism for training tertiary-level teachers.
Many education graduates who have passed the entrance exams for the teacher training professional program do not meet the educational requirements. This can be seen from the standard passing grades set for pedagogic competence, science and English in the national written exams (UTN).
When the UTN passing grade is set at 50, 93 percent of exam-takers passed. When the UTN passing grade is raised to 65, the proportion of those who pass drops to 90 percent. Finally, when the UTN passing grade is raised to 76, the figure drops to 67 percent.
Similarly, 2,035 teacher training students at 24 LPTKs took repeat exams in December 2017. The final result was that about 62 percent of exam-takers failed the UTN. The exam-takers were in fact composed of working teachers and teacher training students – high school and vocational high school graduates selected from the regions under a state scholarship program to pursue a Bachelor of Education and a one-year teacher training program at the best LPTK. A portion of the exam-takers were teacher training graduates who had already been assigned to schools in the borderland, outermost and disadvantaged areas (SM-3T).
Itje Chodidjah, a teacher training expert at Prof Dr Hamka Muhammadiyah University, said that if prospective teachers were not well educated, there would be a negative impact on grade-school students.
Meanwhile, Cikal School founder Najelaa Shihab said she tended to recruit new teachers from among non-education graduates of public universities. Of approximately 50 applicants who were LPTK graduates, only one passed the school’s selection tests for personality/character, English language skills and group discussions, as well as teaching demonstrations and classroom observations.
"Actually, schoolteachers do not have to be LPTK graduates. For junior and senior high school teachers, we recruit many graduates of good quality universities. For elementary school teachers, psychology graduates are preferred," said Najelaa. Cikal School has eight campuses across Jakarta, South Tangerang, Bandung and Surabaya.
Association of Indonesian State LPTK Rectors chairman Syawal Gultom, who is also the rector of Medan State University, said there must be a serious commitment to fix the LPTK system holistically, from the bachelor’s program to the teacher training professional program.
(IDO/ELN/DNE)