'It's time to improve teachers' welfare'

'It's time to improve teachers' welfare'

With little fanfare, the country commemorated Teachers Day on
Friday. The Jakarta Post interviewed residents here on the state
of the country's education system.

Nurmanto, 35, is a resident of Bintaro Jaya housing complex in
Tangerang, Banten. He works for a private company in Grogol, West
Jakarta.

Teaching is a respectable job that is very important for the
development of a country. However, we often hear stories about
teachers being blamed for the poor quality of the education
system here.

Teachers are central to our education system but they are not
at fault if the system is backward.
There are many other factors to blame. One of them is the
government's lack of commitment to education.

For example, there are many teachers who have not been
recruited as civil servants. They are paid hourly
at a rate that can be as low as Rp 5,000 (50 cent US dollar) per
hour.

How can we ask them to concentrate on their jobs if their
welfare is ignored? I welcome the plan of the city administration
to increase teachers' salaries. I hope that other regions will
follow suit.

Firmansyah, 40, works for a private company in South Jakarta.
He lives in the Bumi Serpong Damai housing complex in Tangerang,
Banten.

I think it is high time for the government to give serious
attention to the education sector because we have been left
behind by Malaysia, which used to learn from Indonesia.

I hope that teaching will become a prestigious profession.
We offer teachers a high standard of training. This is important
because they are expected not only to master their respected
majors but also how to teach.

The government needs to pay them enough so they don't have to
take side jobs and can save some money for the education of their
children.
But if they had decent salaries we would, of course, expect
them to be more professional.

The Jakarta Post