Illustration: An academic activity between students and a teacher. (Image via World Bank Group)

Commentary: Indonesia's education needs good teachers

Alfonsus Adi Putra
Social & Life
Educations
Sep 04, 2019
2579
During his State of the Nation address, President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, generally known as “Jokowi”, emphasized that for 2020 State Budget, Indonesia would like to focus on the development of its human resources for Industry Revolution 4.0. According to him, the 2020 State Budget Draft allocated as much as US$36 billion for education alone!

Since his campaign, the reelected President of Indonesia kept echoing programs and “magic cards” to provide Indonesian people with better healthcare service and education. Jokowi stated that to be able to compete at the international level, Indonesia needs to improve its human capital and infrastructure. But, human capital comes first.

As the biggest archipelago country in ASEAN and the fourth most populous country in the world, is the step by President Jokowi already precise?

While big numbers were revealed for Indonesian education development, some experts, monitoring Indonesia’s education for a while, stated that instead of spending budget for programs, the President should have focused on enhancing teacher’s quality.

As a matter of fact, for the last decade, Indonesia’s state budget had allocated its 20% for education alone. A quite big number, so little achievement did they ever get. Then, the matter could not have been the spending.

Noting the detail of the state budget, the huge allocation for Indonesia’s education mainly went to improving teacher’s welfare, at 15% of 20% or US$4.3 billion alone! There was a program in 2007 to provide certification for 3 million uncertified teachers who looked forward to the challenges and the wages. Once certified, the teachers’ wages doubled.

However, does this mean that the teacher’s quality had also improved the education’s quality as well? Nada. Therefore, it was rumored that the certification did not bear any good fruit, but instead an intrigue by Jokowi’s administration to win votes from teachers.

Moreover, the certification did not fully measure the teacher’s competencies, and the certification test was too easy as it used outdated materials.

The big number needs to be controlled to bring out its effectiveness, said Indonesian Minister of Finance, Sri Mulyani Indrawati. Comparing Indonesia to Vietnam, Indonesia’s student quality lagged far behind. According to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey by OECD covering 70 countries, Indonesia came at 62nd, while Vietnam ranked 22nd. Singapore came 1st and China came 10th.

It was noble that Jokowi wanted to focus more on human capital as the world is entering Industry Revolution 4.0. However, the assignment that needs to be done is controlling the allocation of the state budget for Indonesia’s education and monitoring the certification process so that it covers all regions of Indonesia.

As Jokowi stated that Indonesia is not only Java island, but from Sabang to Merauke, then it is safe to say that education development should also be applied likewise.

Source: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/indonesia-education-quality-teachers-budget-jokowi-schools-11852570

Education , ASEAN , Indonesia , Jokowi , State-Budget , 2020