Maintaining Teacher Quality

KOMPAS/WAWAN H PRABOWO

Thousands of teachers attend the peak of National Teacher\'s Day and the 73rd birthday of the Indonesian Teachers\' Association (PGRI) in Pakansari Stadium, Bogor, West Java, Saturday (1/12/2018). The activity was attended by President Joko Widodo, who called on teachers to continue to grow and increase their professionalism in line with the development of information technology.

Although some regions still have a shortage of teachers, the government has insisted it will not compromise the teacher qualification standards during recruitment to maintain education quality.

A number of regions have urged the government to recruit the non-permanent teachers at its schools as civil servants (PNS), as some non-permanent teachers have served at their schools for a dozen or more years.

The Education and Culture Ministry noted that 736,000 non-permanent teachers, or 28 percent of all teachers, worked at schools in the country. Of these, 12,883 non-permanent teachers aged 35 years and below had taken the PNS entry test.

The government is determined to recruit only those who passed the selection process. Non-permanent teachers who passed with mediocre grades and those who did not pass but who scored close to the threshold are to be included in the education ministry’s “training program”.

The government will not compromise on its teacher qualification standards. As President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo asserted during the 2019 National Education and Culture Conference in Depok, West Java, teachers are at the forefront of improving human resource quality. A teacher must meet academic, professional, pedagogical, character and social requirements.

We certainly respect this assertiveness. However, it is not enough. The government must fix the education system for teachers that teacher training institutions (LPTKs) currently manage.

We cannot ignore the fact that the government allowance for teacher certification, which amounts to a maximum one month’s salary, has contributed to the rising interest among high school/vocational school graduates in becoming teachers. Taking advantage of this enthusiastic response, the number of LPTKs grew to more than 410 private LPTKs. In fact, only 12 teacher training and education institutes (IKIP) and 24 teaching and education departments at public and private universities were available when the interest in becoming a teacher was low.

Unfortunately, the large number of LPTKs was not accompanied by strict government regulations on educational facilities and infrastructure licensing, curriculum and the quality of teaching staff at LPTKs. As a result, LPTKs vary widely in quality. Some have high quality, but others merely pursue high admissions figures while ignoring quality.

On the other hand, the requirements to enroll at LPTKs are lenient. Anyone can enroll as a LPTK student. The admissions process is the same as other academic disciplines. However, LPTK students should be better qualified in their academic, psychological and pedagogical aspects because they will teach the nation’s children.

Therefore, the quality of our teachers cannot be maintained if the recruitment process only involves a civil service test. Comprehensive improvements must be made from the selectionprocess  to the quality of teacher training institutes.