Teacher Certification: The Quality of Teachers in Indonesia

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.