Investing in Education

KONTAN.CO.ID - JAKARTA. The Singapore government’s decision to raise the salaries of around 36,000 teachers by 2% to 9% starting from October 2026 shows that teacher welfare is part of the strategy for safeguarding education quality. The government of the city-state regards teachers as a vital asset that must be retained through a competitive remuneration package in order to attract and keep high-quality teaching staff.

The comparison across the ASEAN region is striking. Citing Tribunnews, a novice teacher in Singapore receives around Rp44 million to Rp75 million per month, while in Brunei the figure reaches Rp31.6 million to Rp50 million. Malaysia and Thailand offer salaries of around Rp7 million to Rp19 million per month. In Indonesia, the average teacher’s salary still stands at roughly Rp3.8 million to Rp5.5 million per month. This difference is not merely a matter of numbers. The teaching profession demands competence, responsibility and high dedication in shaping the quality of human resources. Adequate welfare is one of the key factors in keeping the profession attractive to the best talent and capable of delivering a quality education.

However, Singapore’s experience also shows that a pay rise is not the only answer. Competence development, career progression and workload management remain essential parts of maintaining the professionalism and appeal of the teaching profession. Welfare must go hand in hand with improvements in the quality of teaching staff.

Indonesia has made efforts to improve teacher welfare through various policies, including certification, professional allowances and competence enhancement. Even so, the challenge of achieving more equitable teacher welfare still needs continual attention so that the profession becomes increasingly attractive and capable of producing an outstanding generation.

Ultimately, the quality of education is determined not only by the curriculum, infrastructure or technology. Teachers remain the decisive factor in educational success. For this reason, improving both teacher welfare and professionalism must be a long-term investment to strengthen the nation’s competitiveness.

A teacher pay rise is certainly not the sole solution to the problems of education, but it is difficult to expect the quality of education to improve significantly if the welfare of teaching staff has not been made a priority. Indonesia’s challenge is to ensure that improvements in welfare proceed in step with better recruitment quality, competence and teacher evaluation systems, so that they have a real impact on the quality of education.