Draft Education Bill Promises Decent Livelihood for Teachers, But Will It Deliver?
The House of Representatives Commission X has approved the draft of the National Education System Bill (RUU Sisdiknas), which includes norms on teacher welfare, to be forwarded to the Legislation Body. This stage will determine how the state positions teachers: merely as policy implementers burdened with high demands and low incomes, or as professionals who must receive welfare guarantees to carry out their duties professionally and maintain the quality of national education.
In the field, expectations of teachers continue to rise. They are required to deliver quality learning and assessment, shape character, keep up with the times, understand student diversity, and prevent and handle violence. They are often the first to be blamed when the quality of national education is deemed low. Ironically, many teachers still work for low incomes, forcing them to divide their attention between teaching duties, developing their competence, and worrying about meeting their own and their families’ basic needs.
Therefore, the revision of the Sisdiknas Law must create conditions that allow teachers to carry out their obligations professionally while also securing their welfare rights. The law must not stop at formal recognition but must become a binding state instrument capable of resolving the recurring problem of teacher welfare.
It is commendable that the draft dated 8 July 2026 stipulates teachers’ rights to an income that ensures a decent living and social security. However, listing a right does not automatically guarantee its fulfilment. A norm will only work if it is clearly formulated: who is responsible, what the source of funding is, what the implementation standards are, who supervises, and what the consequences are if obligations are not met.
Without such clarity, teachers’ rights risk remaining sweet promises on paper, losing their binding force when confronted with excuses of budget constraints, overlapping authorities, or low compliance from education providers, whether central government, regional governments, or educational units. Fulfilling teachers’ rights is not a policy option that can be implemented or postponed depending on circumstances; it is a legal obligation that must be enforceable.
The draft stipulates that the amount of teacher income is determined by the central government, considering economic growth, inflation, and regional cost-of-living indices. The explanation links a decent livelihood to the ability to reasonably meet the needs of the teacher and their family. This formulation touches on one of the most fundamental and chronic problems facing teachers: the lack of a guaranteed decent and dignified livelihood.
As long as welfare is not guaranteed, demands for professionalism risk becoming a distant ideal, as some teachers must still struggle to meet basic needs or seek additional income. This economic vulnerability is not merely a personal problem for teachers but a fundamental issue for the quality of learning. It can erode the time, energy, and professional focus that should be devoted to building students’ awareness and desire to learn, fostering perseverance, and encouraging creativity and innovation.
Therefore, the recognition of the right to a decent livelihood must be accompanied by strong normative guarantees in the Sisdiknas Law. The law does not need to contain all the calculation formulas and payment procedures; technical details can be regulated through government regulations. However, the law must first establish non-negotiable fundamentals: the party responsible for fulfilling teachers’ rights, the minimum parameters for a decent living, the division of funding responsibilities, the mechanisms for supervision and rights restoration, and the consequences for non-compliance. Implementing regulations should operationalise these guarantees, not determine whether teachers’ rights will be fulfilled or not.
The method of calculating and updating income, adjustments for differences in living costs between regions, and supervision procedures can indeed be regulated through implementing regulations. However, the delegation of regulation must not become a path to delay obligations or empty the law’s binding force. The Sisdiknas Bill needs to mandate the establishment of implementing regulations within a clear timeframe so that the fulfilment of teachers’ rights is not left hanging without certainty.
This is crucial because teachers’ working conditions are not uniform. Teachers in archipelagic regions, for instance, face transportation costs, staple goods prices, and limited basic services that differ from those of teachers in urban areas. Without minimum parameters, a periodic adjustment mechanism, a firm division of responsibilities, and consequences for non-compliance, the term ‘decent livelihood’ can be interpreted in various ways and lose its binding force. Excuses of budget constraints and overlapping authorities risk continuing to be used as justification for neglecting the obligation to fulfil teachers’ rights.
The draft also states that teachers who have obtained a certificate are entitled to a performance-based professional allowance, at least equivalent to one month’s basic salary of a teacher appointed by the central government at the same level, length of service, and qualifications. The formulation regarding recipients and the minimum amount is sufficiently clear. However, the meaning of ‘performance-based’ needs to be aligned with the norms regarding duties, competence, and teacher professionalism in the Sisdiknas Bill. The draft positions teachers as professional educators tasked with planning and implementing learning, assessing and evaluating learning outcomes, and guiding students. Therefore, teacher performance must not be reduced to administrative completeness, attendance at training sessions, or solely students’ final grades. Teacher performance should be assessed based on quality.