City to hire only 122 new teachers

JAKARTA (JP): The city education and teaching office will hire only 122 new elementary school teachers this academic year even though it has been estimated that Jakarta currently needs 2,300 additional teachers, an official has said.

Sulam Ruchiyat of the office said yesterday that the city's inability to recruit more teachers was mainly due to a lack of funds.

"Out of the 122 new positions, 120 will be assigned to be subject teachers and the remaining two would be for sports and religious studies," Sulam said.

If the city could hire all 2,300 new teachers it needed, 800 would be for sports and 1,500 would be subject teachers, he said.

He explained that the number of applicants for elementary teaching positions was dropping substantially. Only 956 people had submitted applications for teaching positions this year compared to some 1,500 applicants last year.

"I don't understand what is happening here. You would think that the monetary situation would prompt a lot of people to apply. But this year is quite different for previous years. Maybe becoming an elementary teacher is not thought to be as promising as it used to be," Sulam said.

Currently, there were some 2,000 part-time elementary teachers who were graduates of Teacher Training and Education Institutes (IKIP), he said.

"But none of them seem to be applying to become full-time teachers," he added.

Based on the office's data, there are 27,040 public elementary school teachers in Jakarta. Ideally, the city's 3,408 elementary schools should employ some 40,000 teachers to teach their pupils.

Moonlighting

Due to a salary of only Rp 192,500 (US$29) per month, teachers are usually forced to seek moonlighting jobs to earn more money.

Also, many are assigned to teach subjects they know little about due to a lack of trained teachers in some subjects.

"Many teachers here are forced to become sports or English teachers despite their limited knowledge of the two subjects. I know this is wrong ... but what can we do? There's not enough good sports teachers in the city," he said.

When asked whether the lack of professional sports teachers was because the government phased out Teacher Training Schools in 1989, he refused to comment but admitted that it was probably one of the causes.

"I can't say much about that. That was a ruling from higher authorities. All I know is that Jakarta needs more elementary teachers now," he added.

Afiff Hamka of the city council's commission E on welfare affairs, said that the employment of more teachers in the city was a must.

"Think of the children. Many of the pupils now do not have sufficient sports knowledge because their teachers fail to teach them properly. Students rarely play sports anymore ... I think the best way is to recruit more qualified teachers. Not just picking them randomly," he said.

Afiff said the education world would be in jeopardy if the ministry failed to allocate proper funding for teachers.

"Every teacher has to be placed according to his or her background. For instance, you can't assign a mathematics teacher to teach sports," he added.

All of the elementary school teacher applicants this year will undergo a series of tests Monday in the Senayan indoor stadium in Central Jakarta.

Subjects tested will include Indonesian, Pancasila, history, general knowledge and psychology. A special screening process will also be held by the municipality after the tests. (edt)