'Pay teachers more for the students' sake'

JAKARTA (JP): Councilors urged the municipality yesterday to review the city's policies on teachers' salaries and involuntary deductions.

Councilors Lukman Mokoginta from the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) faction and Soeparmo from the dominant Golkar said a drastic salary increase was needed to ensure the nation had professional educators.

Lukman said the basic salary for teachers should be at least 10 times higher than the current rate of Rp 152,500 (US$44.20) per month for a beginner teaching the lower grades.

"How can they teach their students appropriately if the teachers have to keep thinking how to earn more money?" he said after a plenary session at City Council yesterday.

Like their colleagues throughout the country, Jakarta teachers, particularly state employees, have learned to live on the tiny payments. And instead of complaining, most teachers -- who commemorated National Teacher's Day last week -- prefer to moonlight.

Lukman questioned the ability of teachers to devote their attention to students when their loyalties were torn between earning enough money to live and their professional obligations.

The victims of a teacher's diverted attention were the students, he said.

"Teachers would do their job properly if they received better remuneration," Lukman, from Commission D for development affairs, said.

"Being a teacher nowadays is synonymous with small salaries and living a hard life. That's why many teachers spend their spare time as ojek (motorcycle taxi) drivers or newspaper sellers, just to earn more money for living."

Councilor Soeparmo, head of Commission E for welfare affairs, agreed with his colleague's sentiment.

"If we want to improve the quality of our teachers, the most important thing we have to do is 'fill their stomachs' first."

He also criticized the city's unfair treatment of teachers, particularly the imposition of various levies on their salary and incentive bonuses.

"There are already too many 'illegal' levies," Soeparmo said, urging the municipality to stamp out such immoral acts.

Several school principals said recently that they had to pay levies for last month's SEA Games and the money was deducted from their pay for at least six months beforehand.

"It was a real burden for us because our salary is already small," one of the principals said at the time.

In order to create a better school environment, Lukman also urged the municipality to revoke Gubernatorial Decree No.1774/1987 which states that an elementary school plot should be between 2,000 square meters and 3,000 square meters.

"Those kind of measurements are no longer suitable for an elementary school," he said. "The plot for such a school should be at least 5,000 square meters, which includes facilities such as sports fields and a cultural hall." (07)