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.