100,000 teachers to become civil servants
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The long-cherished dream of contractual teachers across Indonesia to be made civil servants will soon come true as the Ministry of National Education plans to change their current status this year.
"We are planning to appoint at least 100,000 contractual teachers as civil servants and raise the honorarium of some 136,011 others to meet the minimum wage," Minister of National Education Bambang Sudibyo said on Monday.
He announced the plan during a joint hearing with Minister of Religious Affairs M. Maftuh Basuni and the House of Representatives Commissions VIII and X, which oversee the two ministries.
Currently, there are around 236,011 contractual teachers assigned to public schools of all levels nationwide, with each receiving only Rp 460,000 per month. Even their renumeration is not paid monthly, but every three months.
The salaries of civil servants vary in every region. In Jakarta, for example, a new civil servant gets a take-home pay of Rp 1,850,000 per month.
Bambang said the government also proposed that the monthly renumeration of the remaining 136,011 contractual teachers be increased from Rp 460,000 to Rp 710,000. The provincial minimum wages for workers are set at between Rp 340,000 and Rp 711,843.
Asked why only 100,000 contractual teachers would be made civil servants, the minister said that was all the government could afford.
The move to hire contractual teachers was aimed at temporarily covering the shortage of teachers in schools throughout the country.
Data from the education ministry shows that schools nationwide lack some 427,903 teachers, causing a low ratio of teachers to students.
The teachers signed contracts for a three-year period, with the expectation of being hired as a civil servant at the end of the contract, but in reality many of them have worked for almost 10 years without any certainty of being made civil servants.
Lawmakers and labor activists have repeatedly urged the government to pay more attention to the contractual workers' well-being, including making them civil servants.
"By appointing them as civil servants, we will save Rp 143.9 billion from the state budget as local administrations will pay for their salaries," Bambang said.
He added that the quality of teachers would also improve as they will be supervised by regional education offices.
House members told Monday's hearing that the contractual teachers should be made civil servants without undergoing further tests because they had already passed exams when they were initially recruited.
They also urged the education ministry to provide 127,000 more contractual teachers to meet the total need for teachers in public and private schools.
The lawmakers also stressed that teachers should not be treated as laborers in term of salaries. "It is a noble profession," a legislator said.
In the meeting, the education ministry also put forward two other options.
The first option is to extend the contracts of 174,232 contractual teachers, which will end in December. Contractual teachers, however, will still be paid the same amount of Rp 460,000 per month.
A second alternative proposed that their monthly remuneration be increased to Rp 710,000 and the contracts be renewed after December.
The ministry's plan, however, would still have to wait for approval from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. (003)