Campaigning for a fair deal for teachers

Campaigning for a fair deal for teachers

Oyos Saroso H.N., The Jakarta Post, Bandarlampung

It was about 8 a.m. in the middle of August 2001 and you could
still smell the soil that the whole night's rain had made wet in
the yard of Taruko restaurant, Jl. Pangeran Diponegoro, in
downtown Bandarlampung.

A young teacher was walking to and fro in front of the
restaurant, glancing at his watch every now and then in his
restlessness.

Thirty-six-year-old Gino Vanollie, the young teacher, had an
appointment to meet his colleagues. They were not going to dine
at the restaurant or leave together for their school.

Instead, they were planning to stage a protest rally at
Bandarlampung municipal administration office, some 100 meters
away from the restaurant.

They wanted to see Suharto, Bandarlampung municipality chief,
to demand that he immediately disburse the back pay increase of
Bandarlampung's teachers working at government schools from
kindergartens to senior high schools.

Totaling about Rp 16 billion, the arrears had been outstanding
for close to a year. Each teacher was owed about Rp 1.5 million.

Gino began to smile when he saw his colleagues turn up, one by
one. He was increasingly convinced that that day, which would see
a demonstration attended by thousands of teachers from various
levels, would mark the first salvo of teacher resistance in the
area.

Until then, teachers at government schools had always been
obedient to their superiors' instructions for fear of losing
their jobs.

New Order fear

"During the New Order era, teachers were afraid to demand
things that they deserved. They would think it sufficient to
have praise heaped on them by being labeled "Heroes Without Merit
Medals".

"They kept silent when their rights were ignored. This
situation calls for change now. If teachers are to teach
professionally and the quality of education is to improve, the
government should value the teaching profession properly," Gino
said.

After about 6,000 teachers got together, Gino led the protest
rally. They marched in orderly fashion to the office of the
municipality chief, causing widespread congestion along two main
roads.

Despite some tension, the rally passed off peacefully. In a
meeting with the teachers, Suharto promised to disburse
immediately the outstanding pay increase.

"We need several more days as the municipality administration
is short of that amount of cash. I'll take a loan from Bank
Lampung," Suharto said.

The next day, the rally became headlines in a number of local
media. Aside from sympathy, the rally also sparked criticism.

"Why did teachers go on a protest rally? What would happen to
the pupils? If the teachers go on a protest rally, it means the
pupils are being neglected," said some of the criticism published
in the local media.

Gino and his fellow teachers stuck to their guns, and were
rewarded when Suharto kept his promise several days later. Since
the rally, Gino became increasingly aware that it was very
important to develop and maintain a critical attitude on behalf
of teachers.

"I'm sure that every teacher taking part in a protest rally is
torn between the rally and the classroom. I also realize that the
teachers participated in the rally because they were fighting for
their rights.

Consolidation of protest action

"Subsequent to the rally, we are now considering the
establishment of an organization that can accommodate teachers'
aspirations and, at the same time, stand up for teachers
subjected to injustices," said Gino, a teacher who is always
considered to be very close to his pupils.

Gino and some fellow teachers therefore set up the Forum for
Indonesian Teachers' Dignity (FMGI) for teachers at every level
about a month after their rally. As the driving force of the new
organization, Gino, who has networked widely and who is on good
terms with many prodemocracy activists in Lampung, serves as its
secretary.

"Even though we are in the reform era now, if we fight all
alone, it is easy for us to be "pushed aside". That's why, since
its inception, FMGI has established working relationships with
non-governmental organization activists, students and
journalists. It is this networking that has given us greater
bargaining power when we deal with the national education service
and government bureaucrats."

"Scholarship funds embezzled in Lampung amount to quite a lot.
The funds allocated under various scholarship schemes for Lampung
province amount to over Rp 20 billion a year. As these funds have
not been properly used, we still see a lot of school dropouts.

"In fact, the funds would be sufficient to ensure that every
child went to school in Lampung," said Gino, who teaches physics
at SMA 9 Bandarlampung.

Born in 1968 in Ngadri village, Kesamben district, Blitar
regency, East Java, Gino is a newcomer to Lampung. He moved there
in 1988 when he was accepted, without an entrance test, at the
teaching and pedagogy school of Lampung University. To support
himself financially, he worked as a laborer on construction
sites.

His tough experiences in the past have made him a teacher
sensitive to the plight of poor and unfortunate pupils. It is
this sensitivity that prompted him in 1999 to join SMA Tunas
Harapan, a senior high school whose students comprise mostly
housemaids and manual laborers. Gino receives Rp 350,000 a month
as the school principal and one of its teachers.

Although he earned only Rp 11,000 per teaching hour, he said,
teaching housemaids and manual laborers gave him a special kind
of satisfaction. "I don't earn my living teaching there; I have
my pay as a teacher at SMA 9. I have joined SMA Tunas Harapan to
demonstrate my sense of responsibility and dedication to the
community, especially as I came from a poor family," he noted.

With his four years' experience as an educational activist,
Gino is not only known as a hero by fellow teachers but also as
an outspoken educationist within the national arena.

The Indonesian Independent Teachers' Federation (FGII), an
alliance of 23 independent teaching profession organizations in
several regions in Indonesia, has entrusted him as the head of
the federation's division of advocacy and interinstitutional
cooperation.

Gino said he did not defend and help only the teachers in FMGI
but all teachers in general. "For me, the government's promise to
improve the quality of education is just nonsense unless proper
attention is devoted to teachers' welfare.

"If they cannot survive on their teaching salaries, many take
a side job as, for example, a motorcycle taxi driver," he added,
ruefully.