Impoverished teachers moonlight in wealthy province
Impoverished teachers moonlight in wealthy province
Rusman, The Jakarta Post, Samarinda
Sheltered from the scorching sun, Abdullah, 45, sits on his
motorbike daydreaming under the shade and hoping for a passenger.
The secondary school teacher works part time as an ojek, or
motorcycle taxi driver, to earn extra income for the family.
"You cannot expect much from a teacher's salary," Abdullah
says.
Every morning, the father of two gets ready for work as a
teacher at the No. 5 Senior High School in Samarinda, East
Kalimantan. After teaching, he immediately returns home, changes
clothes and rides to the spot where he usually waits for
passengers.
He earns at least Rp 15,000 (US$1.50) a day from the sideline
job. He saves the money to pay for the monthly installment on his
motorbike and the rent on his house.
"You can't count on a teacher's pay to meet the daily needs of
the family, let alone pay for the monthly bills," he said.
The salary of an Echelon IV civil servant is only Rp 1.1
million a month. That amount is not enough to support
his wife and two children with the high cost of living in East
Kalimantan. He spends at least Rp 20,000 a day for food. Living
costs across the board have risen since the government raised
fuel prices on Oct. 1.
"We spend at least Rp 10,000 a day to buy fish, Rp 5,000 for
tempe (bean cake) and tofu, not to mention buying rice, paying
electricity and water bills and the children's education. Frankly
speaking, if a teacher is not smart enough to look for other
means of income, he or she could die starving," he said.
Their rented house, not far from his school, is very modest,
only measuring 24 meters square with one bedroom. A television
and an old sofa set are the simple furnishings in the living
room. A thin mattress lies on the bedroom floor for the couple
and their six-year-old son to sleep on, while the eldest son,
aged 13, sleeps in the guest room.
While teachers are worse off, the province's Gross Regional
Product (GRP) is steadily increasing. Starting from a GRP of Rp
113.43 trillion (US$11.28 billion) in 2003, it is expected to
reach Rp 119.35 trillion this year and to grow to Rp 163.9
trillion in 2010.
The province's figures are so good because of its abundant
petroleum resources, which are estimated at 13 percent, or 9.6
billion barrels of the national reserve. Its natural gas
reserves, meanwhile, are estimated at 30 percent, or 170 trillion
cubic meters of the national total.
After regional autonomy, revenue splits from production
sharing contracts mean East Kalimantan could allocate a
provincial budget of Rp 2.7 trillion this year, which it plans to
spend on a number of large infrastructure projects. However,
Abdullah says the importance of developing the education sector
seems to have missed the powers that be.
He hopes that the newly rich province could set aside some
funds by providing incentives or higher salaries to teachers.
"If you compare a teacher's salary with that of a carpenter or
a construction worker, there won't be any difference. The only
difference is that we are civil servants. They don't get any
benefits from their employers and neither do we from the
government."
According to regional data, the number of senior high school
teachers in the regency was at 2,148 in 2004, with an estimated
22,321 senior high school students.
Head of the East Kalimantan Education Office, Syafruddin
Pernyata, said matters pertaining to teachers' welfare were in
the hands of the regional governments. He said that his office's
only concern was developing teachers as human resources.
To avoid an overlap in providing incentives to teachers,
Syafruddin said that his office was considering giving teachers'
children educational scholarships.
That would be a welcome start for Abdullah, who along with
teachers nationwide, is preparing to observe the first National
Teachers Day on Nov. 25.