The quality of teacher plays a
crucial role in determining a nation's competitiveness, especially in
globalization era. Indonesia, in particular, has acknowledged the importance of
improving the quality of education, especially the quality of teachers, in
order to supply the country with highly competitive human resources. With 65%
of the total number of 2.7 million teachers in Indonesia not meeting the requirement
as a professional teacher (Jalal,
2009), it is now needed a genius strategy to produce a professional teacher to
compete locally, nationally or even internationally. It can be done if
societies and governments are working together to achieve an improvement in the
quality of teacher.
If one assumes that quality teachers
produce quality students, then poor achievement of students can be attributed
to the poor quality of teacher. This indicates that there is a strong
synchronizes between the teacher competences to the student performances. What
teachers have taught and applied in the classroom made an impact to the student
results. Even though the awareness of the importance of the quality of
education, especially teachers, has undertaken to improve it, Indonesian
government has to concern about the standard of achievement of the student.
Facts of Student
Performance
According to the result of Third
International Mathematic and Science Study (TIMS), the performance of
Indonesian grade eight students in both fields are quite poor.
Compared to the international average, Indonesian student’s level of
performance is below the international average in the field both Mathematic and
Science. It is stated that “In Math, Indonesia students ranked 34 out of 45
countries surveyed in 2003. In 2007, this position dropped out to 36 out of 49
countries surveyed. In Science,
Indonesian student ranked 36 out of 45 countries surveyed in 2003, although the
position improved slightly to 35 out of 49 countries in 2007”.
The poor performance of Indonesian
students was confirmed by the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment
(PISA). PISA assesses the performance of 15 year old students in science,
reading, and mathematics. From 57 countries surveyed, Indonesia ranked 52 for
science, 48 for reading, and 51 for mathematic. This achievement is low
compared to the median score of international student’s achievement in the
three subjects.
Despite the generally poor performance of Indonesia
students, a small number of Indonesia student’s has achieved remarkable
achievement in the international mathematic and science Olympiad.
In reality, however, the majority of student’s perform poorly both in local,
national, or even in the international level.
To overcome the problems in our
education system, the government has introduced a number of reforms into the
education sector. After the end of New Order government, there two significant
of legislation provided to do a reform in our education system: the 2003
Education Law (Law No.20/2003 on the National Education System) and the 2005
Teacher and Lecturer Law (Law No.14/2005 on Teachers and Lecturers). The focus
of these laws requires change to education policies and strategies,
particularly to the area of teacher management and development (Jalal, 2009:
6).
The Quality of
Teachers in Indonesia
The poor achievement of students may
reflect the lower quality of teachers in Indonesia. This issues, recently is
growing broader and become one of the societies and government’s concern. As
Winataputra stated, “The main problem in Indonesia education system is all
about teacher, teacher, and teacher. Teacher has lower quality and
professionalism” (Lampung Post, 2009). To improve the lower quality of teachers
in Indonesia, government has to pay attention to the teacher’s need: welfare,
salary, upgrading skill and educational background).
Statistic from the Ministry of
National Education (MONE, 2008) indicates that teachers in Indonesia have
relatively lower level of academic qualification than those neighboring
nations. More than 60 percent of the total 2.78 million teachers have not reach
the level of academic qualification of four year bachelor degree (D4/S1). This statement also strongly emphasized by
Baedhowi (2008) that only 41, 7 percent out of 1.143.000 teachers have reached
the bachelor’s degree (S1). With low
educational level also consider to get underpaid salary. This suggests there is
a lack of incentive for teacher to upgrade their academic qualification.
The relatively low quality of
teacher candidates in Indonesia is further underlined by the result of the
national civil service teacher’s examination 2004 which was conducted by
Departemen Pendidikan Indonesia. The result shows that on average, teacher’s
examination scores were low in the subjects that were going to be required to
teach (Jalal, 2009: 8). Again, teachers with lower ability often lack
motivation to upgrade their skills and qualifications and this will have an
adverse effect on teaching quality and ultimately on student learning outcomes.
In the other hand, beside the low
level of academic qualification, low teacher’s salaries have significantly
effect the quality of teachers. According to World Education Indicator, 2007,
teachers in Indonesia are significantly underpaid compared to other profession
and their international counterpart. Supriadi and Hoogenbloom (2004) stated
that low teacher’s salaries have contributed significantly to the decline in
status of profession.
Given their low salaries, teachers are often force to find part-time jobs to
supplement their incomes. These part-time jobs are often in low status
occupations such as motorcycle driver, tukang becak, street vendor, and etc. The
need to seek extra income causes come teachers to neglect their teaching
obligation.
Furthermore, to overcome the quality
of teachers in Indonesia, there is a strategy for accelerating the
professionalism of teacher.
There three key components for ensuring the success of the strategy. They are
government, teachers, and society (including parents). The government provides
support for improvement of teacher’s professionalism. This supports involves
upgrading teacher qualification, improving teacher competencies, providing
certification, and improving teacher’s welfare (salary, professional
incentives, functional incentives, and other benefit). Teachers grow to adopt
life-long learning as their need, the self-development of their competencies as
a challenge and good experience, and do their duty well. Finally, all stakeholders
need to play a supervisory and controlling role for the effectiveness of the
project.
Teacher
Certification
The teacher law is an ambitious
effort to upgrade the quality of Indonesian teachers. Its provisions are
intended to improve the effectiveness of the teachers and raise the learning
outcomes of student. For certification to be achieved, teachers must meet the
necessary of the academic requirement and be able to demonstrate the
competencies defined in the Law. This process provides a type of quality
control or sets a benchmark for student about to become practicing teachers as
well as a target for the upgrade training of under-qualified teachers. This
assures the public that the teacher has the required knowledge and skills to
meet the competence standards demanded by the education system and therefore
necessary for the instruction of their children.
The teacher certification program
would eventually impact directly on 2.7 million Indonesian teachers, as well as
affecting many of the conditions under which they were employed. The final
nature of the process had been under discussion since a draft of the Teacher
Law became available for comment and discussion in 1999. Then, in 2006 until
2008, the government has made some accomplishments to conduct the process of
certification by completing and adding the requirements.
In order to improve the quality of
the education and the welfare of the teachers, the certification is designed to
empower and improve the quality of teachers. Teachers meeting the new
competency standard will be eligible for certification and the payment of a
professional allowance which will be double their current remuneration.
The rewards promised are significant. However, the standards required are high.
The law mandates a number of education changes to “…empower and improve the
quality of teachers and lecturers in planned, guided, and sustainable way”.
In order to meet this standard, “…teachers
must have academic qualification, competencies, and educator certificate, and be
physically healthy to realize the national and education goals”.
To satisfy the academic requirement, the law states that as a minimum
qualification, all teachers must have at least a bachelor degree (S1) or four
year diploma program (D4). Once certified, teachers will be awarded an Educator
Certificate. In carrying out their professional tasks, teachers have rights
receive income above the minimum subsistence level and social security benefits
that consist of: a) Basic salary and inherent allowance: base salary as
determined by the employer, b) professional allowances, c) functional
allowances, d) special allowances, and e) fringe benefits related to their
teaching tasks and determined under the principles of performance-based reward.
Financial Implication
The government has planned to
certify all the teachers in the end of the year 2014. So, in 2015, all teachers
have been approved as qualified teacher. In spite of accomplishing the plan,
government needs to consider the amount of the teachers in 2014, the process of
the certification, and last but not least is the financial. The financial
implications of teacher certification are considerable and will shape the
education budget in the future. By far the largest cost will be that of the
professional allowance which will double the base salary of each certified
teacher. Each year an increasingly larger portion of the education will go
toward teacher pay as new teachers enter the system and in-service teacher
succeed at the certification process. The certification itself has many associated cost, including: a) the fee
paid to university to review the teacher portfolios to determine whether the
teacher has passed, b) basic remedial training for teachers who are not successful
in passing the portfolio review, and c) re-testing these remedial teachers.
As additional, for the professional
allowance, it comprises approximately 91% of the total certification-related
cost over the next 10 year.
To put the cost in perspective, by 2015 the professional allowance alone will
be approximately two-thirds of the total 2006 education expenditure in real
terms. Taking other salary cost into account (base salary, the new functional
allowance and special area allowance), by 2012 the amount allocated to salaries
alone will be more than the total education expenditure of 2006. In nominal
terms by 2015 the amount going to salaries alone will be 170 trillion, which is
more than double the total 2006 education expenditure.
In summary, it is clear that in
2014, by the large amount of teachers certified, the professional allowance is
the most significant driving factor associated with certification in the long
term. In the first few years of the years of the process, the upgrading and
certification cost make up a reasonably significant portion of overall costs,
but the professional allowance will make up 90% of total costs by 2012 and 91%
of the cumulative costs from 20017-2015.
Teacher
Certification and Future Policy from Government: Quality Maintenances and the
Strategy
Having a standard and tight
requirement to be a teacher is commonly occurs in some country. For instance,
England and America have their own system to recruit a quality teacher. For
them who want to be a teacher, there many requirements and tests to be accomplish.
It is not only about portfolio and the background knowledge of the teacher.
However, the requirements to be a teacher are determined by many procedures
such as competencies, expertise, dedication, and the commitment to do what
teacher’s calling.
In Indonesia, with the total 2,7million
teachers, the government has to put a standard to fulfill the criteria of
quality teacher. With thousand students spread around the islands, cities, and
rural areas, it is not easy to balance the education needs among the country. As
our fundamental law, education is one of the most importances in order to
improve the quality of the nation. One way to reach the goals is by improving
the quality of teacher, student, and the school itself.
In fact, there are still pro and contra
regarding to the teacher certification. Some people are still questioning: do
the certified teachers will guarantee the quality of the teacher? Has
government considered the financial implication? What kind of policy should be
taken to maintain the quality of our education?
Does the certification reflect the quality of our education system?
Regarding to those questions, I
think government has to be wise to overcome the contextual and situational
problem. It is good to create the system to put a high standard in our
education, especially for the teacher’s quality. However, there should be a
general and specific policy to maintain the quality include in the human
resources and the financial expenditure. Considering the over budget in 2014,
the government has to control the expenses in all certification process. With
around 2.7 million of teachers around Indonesia, government can set up policies
such as a test or procedures in a same regulation by considering the
experience, skills, achievement, and commitment. By upgrading the pass rate of
certification, it would reduce the number of people who choose teacher as
profession.
In the other hand, for the technical things,
the government has to calculate the number of the student in Indonesia and the
teachers needed. By controlling the number of student and teacher, government
can control the quota in each area, region, cities, or rural. Preventing the
over number of teacher can minimize the budget especially in teacher’s
professional allowance.
The other policy that government can
consider is to maximize the teacher capabilities. As we know, a lot of teachers
are having less than 24 hours per week. This teaching load should be
controlled. Teachers should use their time for teaching and learning by having
maximum teaching load. In the other hand, the school has to maximize the
teacher skill by asking them to do multitasking job depending to their talent
and skill. These opportunities will strengthen their skill rather than hiring
more new teacher.
As a conclusion, the government has
to design a policy related to the teacher’s career, school organization, and
the teacher management. The integrated policy framework should be taken
straightforward. Not only the government who responsible to maintain the
quality but also the society, university, the school, and the teachers itself
have to work together. The government consistently put a trust guideline to the
society especially for the school to determine and maintain the teacher’s
quality by conducting selection, observation, control, training, and appraisal.
Even though the certification is
upgrading the teacher’s profession, and now become one of alternative for
looking job, we have to consider the importance of education in the future.
Education is not only about knowledge but it is about the future, pride, and
identity. To maintain and develop the quality is the prior demand to reach the
extra mile of our nation goals.
Harus saya akui
bahwa memang tidak semua siswa memiliki bakat menulis. Mereka perlu dibimbing
dan diarahkan. Inilah yang kemudian saya lakukan. Perlahan-lahan, saya bantu
mereka menemukan ide, lalu menjabarkan alur ceritanya, kemudian menentukan
objek yang akan digambarkan, hingga konflik dan akhir cerita yang seru. Hanya
dengan cara itu, mereka mulai menemukan keyakinan. Percaya atau tidak, sekali
mereka menemukan apa yang harus dituliskan, mereka tidak berhenti untuk
menulis. Hasilnya juga luar biasa. Ada empat buku (kumpulan cerpen) yang mereka
kumpulkan dalam bentuk buku kumpulan cerpen, lengkap dengan desainnya. Isinya
sangat bagus. Saya sampai terheran-heran dengan bahasa mereka yang sangat
puitis, romantis, dan sarat dengan seni sastra.
Berikut ini adalah karya-karya mereka. Mereka masih kelas 10, tapi
karyanya melebihi usia dan kelas mereka. Luar biasa!