'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