The History of Teacher Reform in

Indonesia

Source: Teacher Reform in Indonesia: The Role of Politics and Evidence in Policymaking (The World Bank, 2014)

Link: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2013/12/05/000442464_20131205130239/Rendered/PDF/

831520PUB0Teac00Box379886B00PUBLIC0.pdf

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Important markers• 2002 Amendment to the Constitution, 20% of national

budget is allocated for education.

• The growing perception that teacher income and teacher status are the main reasons for the poor quality of teaching in Indonesian schools.

• This perception became the proposal in the Parliament for government regulation/law to double teacher salary. To avoid mixture with other government employees, it is considered as “professional allowance.”

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• Directorate General for the Quality Improvement of Teachers and Education Personnel was created.

• It developed a profile of Indonesia teachers. The profile reinforced the views that, in general, teachers are badly paid, poorly motivated, inequitably deployed, increasingly disrespected by the communities they served, and with few opportunities for further training.

• Thus, professional allowance should focus on both teacher welfare and teacher quality, by requiring those who receive allowance go through some process to be considered as “professional.”

• Great support by the new Parliament, some of them were former teachers, backed by by political parties that saw teachers as important constituents and local opinion leaders.

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• Thus, these forces, the stakeholders: - the government (the Ministry of National Education, the Ministry of Finance, the National Planning Board)- the Parliament - the political parties- teacher associations joined together and formed a consensus that led to Teacher Law of 2005.

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Debates on the Implementation Plan

• The government (the Ministry of National Education and the National Education Standards Board) - focused on “teacher quality,” arguing for the importance of the assessing teacher’s core competencies through competency tests.

• Teacher associations focused on “teacher welfare” and considered competency tests as assaults. They were backed up by the Parliaments who refused to provide funds for competency tests. Instead they proposed the idea of “portfolio assessment” as competency tests.

• Portfolio as the compromise, but this was not strongly linked to demonstrated competencies in either subject content or pedagogical skill.

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Implementation Issues• The new Directorate General: understaffed and

inexperienced.

• The reform: major, comprehensive, untested.

• The system: complex and inefficient bureaucracy.

• Decentralization: district officials and principals had a sense of independence and reluctance to listen to the mandates if there is no clear incentives.

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• The management problem at district offices. No unit comparable to the new directorate, thus handling teacher management & development in a piecemeal and uncoordinated fashion.

• The integrity problem at district offices and schools. Regulations about which teachers start the certification (senior teachers w/ 4-year degree) are not followed, leading to corruption and favoritism allegations.

• Fictitious and falsified portfolio documentation.

• The shortage of assessors from teacher education institutions, thus, the portfolios were not assessed seriously.

• Funding to teacher education institutions was delayed. 7-month initial planning and implementation process was cut into 2 months. This cancelled the plan for tailored-based training into standardized training, inefficient training processes (e.g., 25 parallel classes into one’s institutions, a large percentage of time allocated for breaks and admin tasks), and almost 100% pass the training.

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Other early challenges• Three years after the passing of the Teacher Law, the

Directorate General for Quality Improvement of Teachers and Education Personnel was dismantled, and different aspects of teacher development and management were placed in different directorates and in a new Board for Educational and Cultural Human Resources Development and Quality Assurance for Education

• Why? To be more responsive in adapting strategies to the particular needs of different regions, different teachers - greater variety in content and options in the 90-hour course. This never took place.

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• Teachers with professional allowance was expected to use it for continuing professional development. This rarely happened.

• The requirement for every certified teacher to teach a minimum of 24 hours (instead of 18 hours as preferred by teacher institutions) was not easy to implement.

• Other parts of the reform focusing on quality were either delayed, or not actively implemented at the district level. These include: effective & merit-based procedures in appointing school principals and supervisors, more rigorous mechanisms for probation, induction, and teacher appraisal. Thus, funds for teacher professional development at the district level were often unspent.

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• Public and private school teachers. Public school teachers got more priorities to start the certification process; thus, many teachers from best private schools moved to public schools, even just as contract teachers, in hope to get a post and to be certified.

• The doubts over the integrity of the portfolio content and the fairness of the portfolio assessment procedures across teacher education institutions, and about the efficacy of the 90-hour training program.

• These doubts led to the elimination of the portfolio test as the major tool to gain certification, and the development of Teacher Competency Tests: a pre-test to determine the eligibility to enter the 90-hour training program, and a post-test to justify teacher’s quality in meeting desired competencies, and therefore eligibility to receive professional allowance.

• A combination from the pressure from teacher associations (most teachers must be competent) and financial exigencies (Ministry of Finance wants to ensure the budget for professional allowance is absorbed) led to the Ministry of Education set a passing grade of 30% in the pre-test competency test.

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• The impact of decentralization.

• Context: Decentralization often stops at the district level. Little change/reform happened at the level that mattered most: the community and the school. A district can be in charge of 1000 schools.

• In an decentralized system, substantial policy making and planning authority and resources moved down from central level to district level.

• The implementation processes and resources moved up from sub-district to district level.

• This means district-level offices became much more powerful.

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• Other issues with decentralization:"

1. Division of labor among different levels were unclear and incomplete.

2. The lack of technical and management skills at the lower levels of the system (e.g., planning, budgeting, procurement, accounting).

3. The lack of willingness of the upper level to give up its authority.

4. The lack of pressure felt by district offices to work within a common framework, especially since the central government lost its “carrots & sticks” approach.

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5. Decentralization leads to the increase of teacher workforce, thus, the costs of certification. Between 2006 and 2010, 260,000 primary and secondary teachers were recruited across Indonesia in the following scheme: Fund transfer from central government to local government is determined partly by the number of civil servants. The more civil servants, the larger the fund. Thus, this incentivized teacher hiring, while teacher-student ratio was already low. Incentives to hire more teachers can also be related to the School Operational Assistance program , launched in 2005. Schools use part of the funds to hire more teachers.

6. The appointment of heads of local government sectoral offices, including education, were prone to manipulation and/or favoritism, rather than based on merit and experience.

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7. Decentralization legitimizes the heads of district’s education offices to:

• appointing subdistrict heads and school principals.

• requesting for and deploying new teaching posts.

• prioritizing candidates to obtain the 4-year degree and to enter the certification process.

• be reluctant to withhold the professional allowance for teachers who fail to meet the criteria because of the local personal and political pressures.

8. Parent empowerment as part of the decentralization (school-based management) did not happen much.

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• In conclusion, local government has more resources (the economic impact) and more power (the political impact). This raises concerns about fairness and propriety of teacher management and development.

• Thus, the Teacher Law’s focus on longer-term, continuing quality improvement achieved through flexible, more adaptable, and individualized implementation has in some ways been lost because of (a) political pressures for rapid certification and standardized treatment for all, and (b) economic pressures to quickly and completely spend the new funds moving into the education system.

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• The focus on a “structural” rather than a “cultural” solution to the low status and competency levels of teachers—including a formal degree, portfolios and multiple-choice tests, standardized certification processes, and standardized content for quality improvement, all leading to formal professional labeling and greater income—resulted, in some people’s view, in the downgrading of what in the past had actually been the basis for status: a strong commitment to and passion for teaching.

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• Conclusion 1 The Indonesian Teacher Law of 2005 is unusual in the comprehensiveness of its various components and of the institutions, mechanisms, strategies, and processes put in place to implement it. It is also unusual in the principal incentive designed to inspire it: the granting of status as a “professional” and, probably more important, the large and unconditional increase in income provided upon gaining this status.

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• Conclusion 2 The evolution of the Teacher Law of 2005 from its original conceptualization to its current state of implementation is not unusual for major reforms. From larger macro-level political and economic considerations to more personal and institutional rivalries, a number of complications have arisen to delay or derail the implementation of various parts of the reform. These are well understood by the Ministry of Education and Culture, and steps are being undertaken to resolve many of them. Whether these steps are successful will go a long way toward determining whether the lofty goals and aspirations of the Teacher Law are finally met.

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