Asking Teachers to be Better

Education and Culture Minister Nadiem Makarim\'s speech for National Teacher\'s Day on Nov. 25, 2019, attracted the attention of the public, especially education stakeholders.

Kompas/Hendra A Setyawan

Education and Culture Minister Nadiem Makarim

After mentioning some of the obstacles faced by teachers, Nadiem invited teachers to make changes to realize freedom of learning. Teachers were asked to take the first step and not to wait for orders. Various public responses emerged, both optimistic, pessimistic, and cynical, about Nadiem\'s speech. A cynical impression came from the general chairperson of the Indonesian Teachers Union (PGRI), Unifah Rosyidi. According to Unifah, the speech was not something new because the PGRI had repeatedly spoken of the issues conveyed by the minister.

"Even the President has spoken about them many times. We are waiting for Pak Nadiem to make a review. That will have meaning. As long as he does not conduct a review, there will be no meaning," Unifah said, as quoted by the media. The PGRI\'s stance is understandable because for decades various educational policies have not had substantive impacts on the qualitative of teacher performance. Law No. 20/2003 on the National Education System (Sisdiknas), which states that there be a minimum education budget of 20 percent of the APBN (state budget) and APBD (regional budget) in addition to teacher salaries and official education costs, has been annulled by the Constitutional Court.

We are waiting for Pak Nadiem to make a review.

The phrase "other than teacher salaries" was deliberately stated so that funds would be allocated for quality improvement. Law No. 14/2005 on teachers and lecturers (UU GD) stipulates that teacher professionalism be based on four competencies and certifications obtained through teacher profession education (PPG). In practice, educator certificates are given only based on the assessment of portfolio files, which have no implications for quality. Then the teachers are tested, and are afterward directed to independently do online learning in sustainable profession education (PKB) programs. Teachers are only asked improve their quality.

However, the facts show that even after being given money, teachers do not become qualified. Professional allowances are intended to stimulate the improvement of teacher performance. However, from various studies, including from the World Bank, it has been shown that the certification program in Indonesia, on which trillions of rupiah has been spent, has only increased the incomes of teachers and made the profession more attractive.

Read more : Learning from PISA

KOMPAS/WILIBRORDUS MEGANDIKA WICAKSONO

Students wash their teachers’ feet on Monday (25/11/2019) at of SMP Pius junior high school in Cilacap, Central Java. The teachers and students took turns washing each other’s feet as a symbol of humility and mutual respect to mark National Teachers’ Day.

Quantitative intervention

The difference between program design and implementation also limits the impact of certification on improving teacher quality (World Bank, 2012). This is something Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati often complains about, with the large budget the government has poured into education not reflected in results.

"We have for 10 years allocated 20 percent for education, but the output is not good, it is not as satisfying as we expect," said the minister in a seminar titled Economic Transformation for Advanced Indonesia. The finance minister said, the programme for international student assessment (PISA) score of Indonesian students was still lower than Vietnam, which allocates more or less the same amount in education funding. Like the fate of humans in general, the quality of teachers will not change if we do not change it. To change the quality of teachers, various real efforts or interventions that are rational and effective are needed.

First, improving the quality of teachers can be done through training as a starting point for change. What is needed is training that is "liberating" and at the same time motivating so that teachers become more flexible and more active. This training is important because our teachers\' biggest problem is low motivation. This training must be designed differently to the existing training.

We have for 10 years allocated 20 percent for education, but the output is not good.

The trainees will later become influencers of change or, according to David McClelland\'s theory, spreaders of the N-Ach (need for achievement) virus. Therefore, to be effective, training must be based on theoretical assumptions about adult learning and carried out with approaches and methods of experiential learning.

Second, the Educational Personnel Education Institution (LPTK) and teacher profession education (PPG) must be redesigned in terms of content/curriculum and learning approaches. It is necessary to study the possibility of merging the LPTK with the PPG so that the preparation period for someone to become a teacher through integrated paths is shorter, for example a maximum of 4 years (2.5 years of theory/practicum and 1.5 years of internship practice).

Read more : PISA and Our Human Resource’s Capacity

Third, there needs to be reform of the curriculum, approaches, and methods of education for teachers and teacher candidates. The minister\'s idea of a teacher who realizes "freedom of learning" and "mobilizing teachers" needs to be given a clearer operational definition so that it can become a guideline. It would be better if the idea of the minister was discussed according to Article 40 Paragraph (2a) of the National Education System Law on dialogic teachers. Dialogic teachers are teachers who in terms of praxis able to create an atmosphere and learning process that allows students to develop their potential.

Referring to Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of Opressed, 1985), in dialogical education, teacher-student relations are positioned as subject-subject relations, while the object is a problem. So, the teachers and students are involved in the process of learning together dialogically in facing problems. This is what Freire calls the "problem posing education" model. In the field of medicine, this learning model was developed by Barrows at McMaster University\'s School of Medicine in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, in the 1960s. In Indonesia, some schools of medicine still apply this technique, which is called problem based learning/problem based learning (PBL).

Dialogic learning prioritizes the involvement of action and reflection as the antithesis of the learning model of "banking", which in practice is "antidialog". Learning practices like this that are applied in most of our schools have weakened the ability to reason, as reflected in the results in the PISA.

Dialogic learning requires "a sense of independence" in both the teachers and the students. Besides the above training, to bring a sense of independence, the treatment of the civil servants/bureaucrats who oversee education also needs to be changed. It must be admitted, besides various regulations that shackle teachers, the arrogant, corrupt, and far-fetched attitudes of most officials and civil servants in educational management institutions play a role in bureaucratizing the teachers\' mentality. Teachers also act more like bureaucrats, like colonial village headmen, than educators with a cool disposition.

Fourth, build a laboratory school (labschool) as a reference school. As in medical education, medical scholars study medical practice in education hospitals under the guidance of consultants. They learn procedures for how to properly handle patients based on theory, experience, and practice. In the education of teacher candidates in the LPTK and the PPG, after getting training in micro teaching on campus, they also have to learn the practice of professional teachers in the labschool.

The problem is, some of the labschools owned by the LPTK today that should be "education schools" for prospective teachers to become "liberators" and "mobilizers" are no different from other schools and only produce conventional teachers. If we want to produce a new generation of teachers, it must begin from practice in the labschool. The community certainly expects and trusts teachers to be willing and able to develop the best learning patterns. However, the government, after giving greater autonomy, carrying out deregulation and debureaucratization, is also expected to ensure teachers are qualified.

Mohammad Abduhzen, Advisor, Paramadina Institute for Education Reform, Paramadina University.