Better pay means better education

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.