Creating Professional Teachers

KOMPAS/ESTER LINCE NAPITUPULU

Kriswantinah, 55, teaches a class of two second graders on Tuesday (23/7/2019) at SDN I Kepoh state elementary school in Kepoh village, Sambi district, Boyolali regency, Central Java. Only one new student enrolled at the school this year, bringing the student body count to 21.

The dismissal of 1,695 teachers that are not university graduates in Simalungun regency, North Sumatra, is still a subject of controversy in a number of circles.

The Simalungun regency administration believes the policy is an implementation of Law No. 14/2005 on teachers and lecturers, which requires teachers to have a minimum education of bachelor’s (S1) or associate (D-4) degree. Therefore, teachers who do not meet the requirements are terminated from their functional positions as teachers by the Simalungun regency administration.

The number is not small -- 1,695 teachers with various problems. Hundreds of teachers over the age of 58 and with no bachelor’s degree, for example, are immediately terminated. Other teachers who have an S-1 or D-4 degree, but the education institutions that issued the degree are unaccredited, are transferred to other units.

This policy, indeed, seems to implement the Teachers and Lecturers Law. However, the enforcement has stirred controversy because it involved a great number of teachers who worked in a large number of schools, namely 843 state elementary schools and state junior high schools.

Such controversies really need not happen if the policy is well prepared. The law on teachers and lecturers provides 10 years for teachers, who are not undergraduates, to finish their university education.

Therefore, many have questioned what has been done by the regency administration for the past 14 years to help those teachers finish their education and obtain a degree? Does the regency administration provide a number of facilities, such as financial assistance and access to education for teachers to pursue higher education?

Therefore, the role of local administration is very necessary.

It feels unfair for teachers in areas with limited access to higher education to complete their university education without local government incentives. It is certainly not easy for teachers in those regions to access quality higher education, especially in terms of costs, time and location. Therefore, the role of local administration is very necessary.

Cases like this can also occur in other areas because there are still many teachers who have not completed their bachelor’s degree. Based on data from the Education and Culture Ministry in 2017/2018, out of 1.48 million elementary school teachers, 208,158 teachers or around 14 percent of them did not have a bachelor’s degree. As for the junior high school level, of the 628,052 teachers, there were 42,986 teachers or 6.8 percent that did not have a bachelor’s degree.

KOMPAS/FERGANATA INDRA RIATMOKO

Nurhidayah, a teacher at SDN I Senting state elementary school, teaches a class of two first graders on Tuesday (23/7/2019) in Senting village, Sambi district, Boyolali regency, Central Java. The two children are the only new students to enroll at the school this year.

On the other hand, President Joko Widodo during the 2019 National Education and Culture Meeting in Depok, West Java, stressed that there was no tolerance for teacher quality because teachers were at the forefront of improving human resources. There are academic, professional, pedagogical, character and social conditions that must be met by a teacher.

Therefore, once again, teacher quality improvement is too heavy if everything is borne by the teacher. Local administrations must also participate in creating quality and professional teachers.