PGRI distances itself from Golkar
BANDUNG (JP): The Indonesian Teachers Association (PGRI) vowed here on Saturday that it would release itself from decades-long association with the dominant Golkar grouping and instead strive to make itself a true professional association.
At the closing ceremony of its 18th congress here, the association also announced the election of Muhammad Surya from the Bandung Teachers Training Institute (IKIP Bandung) as its new chairman.
Set up on Nov. 25, 1945, the association came under pressure recently when university students marked its 53rd anniversary by calling for its dissolution. It has been branded a tool of Golkar, one of former president Soeharto's main political machines along with the Armed Forces (ABRI) and the bureaucracy.
Surya said that by dissociating itself from Golkar, the ruling political organization would face losing up to eight million votes belonging to 1.6 million teachers registered with the association and members of their families who have reached voting age.
Surya promised he would make the association an independent professional body which would strive to improve the welfare of its members. For years teachers have complained of earning only a subsistence salary which has often even been cut.
Surya said the association had pledged to urge the government to improve teachers' welfare and raise the national education budget from 6 percent of the state budget to 25 percent.
"PGRI will no longer channel the political aspirations of Golkar like it did in the past.
"Individuals, however, will be free to do so, but as an institution, PGRI will be independent," Surya said.
Surya was born in the regency of Kuningan in West Java on Sept. 8, 1941, He is a visiting lecturer at Brunei Darussalam University and a lecturer at both the Army Staff and Command School (Seskoad) and Air Force Staff and Command School (Seskoau).
At the end of the congress, a number of association members declared the establishment of the People's Enlightening Party (PMB), joining nearly other 100 political parties that have been established in the past six months.
The PMB's founders were Saenong, who is chairman of the association's Southeast Sulawesi chapter; M.S. Rangkuti, who chairs the North Sumatra chapter; Mizwar, who chairs the West Sumatra chapter; Sumuan, who is chairman of the North Sulawesi chapter; W.D.F. Ringo Ringo, who is a former secretary-general of the organization; and Taruna, J.C.H. Lesilolo and Balkan Kaplale, who are rank-and-file members.
When opening the congress, President B.J. Habibie said: "PGRI should not become a device to serve the interests of certain groups, including its executive board members." (43/aan)