Cirebon, Indramayu short of thousands teachers

NANA RUKMANA The Jakarta Post Cirebon

Cirebon and Indramayu, two cities in West Java province, are experiencing a shortage of thousands of teachers for its elementary and high schools, which makes it that much more difficult to improve the already low quality of their schools.

Provincial administration officials acknowledged that at least 4,800 teachers were urgently required in the two cities but the provincial budget for this year, inexplicably, does not include a line item for teacher recruitment.

Indramayu Regency's Education Agency Head Herutoko said during a press briefing that Indramayu needed about 4,000 more teachers for elementary schools alone.

He said that currently there were 6,311 teachers and staff members for elementary schools in Indramayu.

"That number is certainly far from enough for the 996 elementary schools with 178,242 students across the regency," said Herutoko.

He added that such a shortage had worsened the quality of the schools.

Indramayu Regency Council Chairman Iwan Hendrawan said that the council would ask the local administration to solve the problem soon.

"They have to solve it quickly. Otherwise we'll see an even lower quality of human resources in the future," he said.

Cirebon Municipality's Education Agency Chief Ageung Sumaryana said that Cirebon needed about 800 teachers for elementary, junior high and senior high schools.

"The shortage is mostly in the junior high schools where we need about 340 teachers. But because we didn't have the foresight to put it in our budget we can not recruit new teachers," he said.

He added that in order to reduce the shortage the local administration should hire non-contract teachers, who were paid hourly.

He said that because of the limited finances, the administration could not hire the non-contract teachers as government employees although many of them had worked for the schools for more than 10 years.

He added that currently in Cirebon municipality there were 2,700 government-contracted teachers in 159 elementary schools, 40 junior high schools and 24 senior high schools.

"As the municipality is facing a shortage of teachers many of them also teach in private schools," said Ageung.

Cirebon Municipality Council Chairman Suryana said that the shortage was very serious and they had made it their top priority. But fell short of saying what steps would be taken aside from asking another governmental department.

"We'll ask the Cirebon municipality to quickly solve the problem," he said.