•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   

As questions emerge over whether the country’s high number of unqualified teachers was a factor in the recent poor school national exam results, those at the center of it are blaming entrenched government policies.

The pass rate this year was down significantly among junior and senior high students. Critics say tighter monitoring highlighted students’ dependence on cheating, and by extension, the poor state of the education system.

Sulistyo, chairman of the Indonesian Teachers Union (PGRI), said the problems faced by teachers were complex and consistently overlooked by the Ministry of National Education and regional education offices.

“There’s virtually no guidance from the central government,” he said on Monday.

Deputy National Education Minister Fasli Jala revealed last week that 1.4 million of Indonesia’s 3.6 million teachers did not even have a bachelor’s degree.

He said the ministry planned to provide scholarships for 300 teachers a year to pursue higher education.

But Sulistyo said that figure was nowhere near enough, and that the underlying problem was the uneven development of education across the country.

“Even in [more-developed] East Java we have an elementary school that has only three teachers for all six grades,” he said.

Giri Suryatmana, secretary of the ministry’s Directorate General for Educators’ Improvement, said the problem of underqualified teachers dated back to the transmigration policies of the 1970s and the order by then President Suharto to build schools across the country to tackle illiteracy.

“Back then, the government was pressed to staff these schools with enough teachers, so they weren’t all that concerned about qualifications,” he said.

The recruits included high school graduates and those with a two-year associate diplomas.

Giri said this practice was carried over into the reform era and continued to persist despite decentralization policies designed to improve the quality of teachers at the local level.

He said teachers’ qualifications were not monitored by regional education offices.

“Regional administrations demanded greater autonomy but have neglected the fact that schools in their jurisdictions are recruiting underqualified people as teachers,” Giri said, adding the problem was the same with contract teachers.

He said the government was trying to take control of the situation, with the scholarship scheme one of several programs designed to improve teachers’ quality.

Students have also raised the issue, with one recent graduate of a top Jakarta high school saying she had to augment her English classes with out-of-school courses because her English teacher had a poor grasp of the subject.

Other critics have highlighted the lack of communication between schools and the exam authorities for the falling pass rate this year.

One student at a South Jakarta high school admitted he had passed only because he had cheated.

“The questions were too difficult and different from what we’d learned in class,” he said. He paid to get the answers via text messages.

National Education Minister Muhammad Nuh said the ministry would allocate Rp 100 million ($11,000) for teacher-improvement facilities and for training workshops for teachers in less-developed areas like Nusa Tenggara, Sulawesi and Papua.

In pledging to re-evalute policies that came under fire this year, the ministry said it would take a more active role at the regional level.

But Jakarta State University education expert Arief Rachman said any moves would be meaningless if teachers did not have the requisite academic qualifications, psychological profile and pedagogic skill. “It’s not enough for them to master the subject matter,” he said. “Teachers must also have the skill to teach.”

Suparman, chairman of the Indonesian Independent Teachers Association, said another issue was teachers’ welfare.

“I doubt the ministry’s commitment to improving teachers’ quality of life,” he said