Better pay means better education

A. Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Syamsul Hadi, a lecturer at a state university in Surabaya, has to moonlight at two private universities in Malang and Sidoarjo, both in East Java, to earn additional income and provide for his family.

His income covers the installments for a home and a car loan as well as the cost of education for his three children while his wife's salary as a state bank employee is spent on daily needs.

"It's not enough to depend only on the wage of a civil servant. Almost all of my colleagues do the same thing," the 46- year-old said.

The lecturer in mechanical engineering admitted that many others were unable to properly focus on their students because they had too many.

"If it's just teaching at one or two universities like me, it's ok. Ha.., ha... But many of my friends teach at more than five different universities," Hadi said.

While many lecturers with state universities moonlight to get more income, others lecturers with private universities teach extra subjects to increase salary. Private universities, particularly the elite ones, deliberately allow their lecturers to teach many subjects to boost their income in compensation of the ruling that bans them from teaching in other universities.

Surya Tjandra, a lecturer from Atma Jaya University's Law School in Jakarta said the lecturers could not improve their knowledge because they were busy with their teaching schedule.

"There is no time to do research. However, research is important for a lecturer to improve her or his quality. Research is less appreciated here than teaching," Surya, who was a former director of the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute, said.

The monthly salary for a lecturer at universities in big cities is, on average, between Rp 1.5 million to Rp 3 million while for small universities, mostly in small towns, the monthly salary could be a mere Rp 500,000.

Besides a lack of facilities, many believe that poor salaries for lecturers is one of many reasons for the bad quality of education at universities.

Education expert Prof. Soegeng Santoso of the Jakarta State University (UNJ) said a proper salary and social welfare guarantees for lecturers was needed in order to improve the quality of teaching.

"Awards, career development, legal protection and intellectual property rights, as well as greater access to educational facilities are very important for the advancement of education at a university," Soegeng explained in a seminar at UNJ recently.

Referring to lecturers' habit of teaching at various universities, he joked that many lecturers "now know the route to many universities, but have lost the route to advancing their knowledge."

Chairman of the Indonesian Independent Teacher Association Federation, Suparman, explained that the bill on teachers and lecturers, which is being deliberated at the House of Representatives, did not deal very much with the issue of an increase in salaries, benefits or facilities.

"The bill says that teachers and lecturers 'have the right to proper salary'. But it does not say in detail how much constitutes 'proper'. It's still unclear," Suparman, who is also an activist with the Education Coalition, stated.

Under the Constitution, the government is required to allocate 20 percent of the state budget for education. However, it has thus far failed to meet that requirement due to the limited budget and the lack of political will.

Many universities, especially state universities, which have become state-owned legal entities (BHMN), are currently increasing their tuition fees in an effort to cover their operational costs, and presumable to improve the lecturer's salaries and benefits.

Many people, particularly parents, have protested about the hike in education costs, saying that state-run universities are no longer different -- in cost -- from private ones.

In addition to passing a test, a student, for example, students may be asked to pay approximately Rp 40 million to be accepted as a student of a "less than popular" school. Some of the favored schools, such as the school of medicine, require new students to pay at least Rp 150 million, just for the "enrollment fee".

Inexpensive education or, even, free education is apparently just a slogan for politicians or presidential candidates during campaigns. After elections, most say that all people, not just the government, should be responsible for the cost of education.

In order to move toward quality education, an increase in lecturer's salaries is clearly needed, yet it still seems far away.