Non-Civil Servant Lecturers Testify at Constitutional Court Over Low Pay and Uncertain Status
Non-civil servant (non-ASN) lecturers have claimed they work for years without any certainty over their employment status. The testimony was heard during a judicial review session of Law Number 14 of 2005 on Teachers and Lecturers at the Constitutional Court on Tuesday, 30 June 2026.
One witness, Cenuk Sayekti, a non-ASN lecturer at Airlangga University, said she was recruited without ever receiving a copy of her employment contract. When she was accepted to teach, she was merely asked to sign a document which was immediately taken back by the university. Afterwards, the university issued a decree of appointment without ever providing the contract containing her rights and obligations. “The contract was never given. I only received the appointment decree,” Cenuk told the panel of judges.
According to Cenuk, this situation leaves lecturers with no bargaining power against the university. Salary levels and various working conditions are set unilaterally, forcing lecturers to simply accept the decisions. She recounted the experience of a colleague who had taught for more than ten years at another institution, but when they moved universities, their entire service period was not recognised, and their income calculation started from scratch.
Cenuk stated she receives a basic salary of around Rp3.3 million per month after tax deductions. Although she obtains a lecturer certification allowance, she feels this income does not provide a sense of security because the majority of her earnings depend on components outside the basic salary. She also assessed that income uncertainty impacts academic freedom. Cenuk claimed she was summoned by her superior after criticising a state institution on social media and participating in the 2025 International Workers’ Day rally. Subsequently, her teaching load was reduced, she was removed from several academic teams, and was no longer involved in certain campus activities. “If you ask whether financial security is related to academic freedom, it is. It creates a chilling effect. Many lecturers become afraid to be critical because they worry about receiving the same treatment,” she said. She also revealed that her application for a home ownership loan was rejected because her income was deemed insufficient. To meet her living needs, she works as a consultant outside of her teaching activities.
Another witness, Dinda Dinanti, a non-ASN lecturer at UPN Veteran Jakarta, shared a similar experience. She said that since being accepted as a lecturer in 2018, she has never received an explanation regarding her rights as an employee. After passing the administrative selection and microteaching, an appointment decree was simply placed on her desk without any contract signing. “To this day, I have never signed anything. I only received the appointment decree,” Dinda said.
According to Dinda, her employment status has changed several times, from candidate lecturer, to permanent non-ASN lecturer, to a lecturer at a public university with Public Service Agency (BLU) status. However, when checking the data in the Integrated Resource Information System (Sister), her status is actually recorded as a non-permanent lecturer. Dinda stated she receives a net income of around Rp3.17 million per month. With this income, she struggles to meet her living needs in Jakarta. The cost of transportation from her home in Pamulang to the campus in South Jakarta alone can reach around Rp90,000 per day using online ride-hailing services during peak hours. “If calculated against my basic salary, it is very far from prosperous,” she said. To cover daily expenses, Dinda sells snacks outside of teaching hours. Despite this, she still works more than 40 hours a week due to teaching, supervising students, conducting research, and responding to student consultations until early morning. She also revealed that lecturers at her campus no longer receive honorariums for research or community service. To fulfil scientific publication obligations, she has to use her own money to pay for article publication fees in journals.
Beyond welfare concerns, Dinda highlighted that there are still around 50 permanent non-ASN lecturers at her campus who have served for between six and ten years but have yet to obtain certainty over their employment status.
These testimonies were delivered in the continuation of hearings for Case Number 272/PUU-XXIII/2025 and Number 24/PUU-XXIV/2026. The case was filed by the applicants who argue that the regulation on functional allowances for lecturers in Article 54 paragraph (1) of the Teacher and Lecturer Law does not provide legal certainty. According to the applicants, the norm only states that the government provides functional allowances to government-appointed lecturers without regulating a standard of adequacy or guaranteeing that the income can meet the minimum cost of living. As a result, lecturer welfare is deemed to depend on the policies of each university and the government. In a previous preliminary hearing, the Constitutional Court had asked the applicants to strengthen the constitutional argumentation of their petition. Constitutional Justice Enny Nurbaningsih assessed that the applicants needed to do more than just demonstrate low lecturer income; they had to prove that Article 54 of the Teacher and Lecturer Law has caused the constitutional rights of lecturers to a decent living and the state’s objective to educate the nation to be unfulfilled. Consequently, the evidentiary hearing on Tuesday presented several lecturers as witnesses to explain the daily impact of the norm.