Quality education not a simple matter
Fuad Abdul Hamied, Indonesia University of Education (UPI), Bandung, West Java
The scope of the implementation of the regional autonomy law is multi-dimensional. It pervades all sectors of human needs and activities, including educational activities.
Regional autonomy is to be established with the principle of decentralization, that is, the handing over of authority by the government to the regions within the framework of the Unified Republic of Indonesia. Decentralization must be coupled with the transfer of funds, facilities, and human resources that are relevant to the powers that have been handed over.
Under the term educational personnel, we subsume teachers and such other educational personnel as administrators, curriculum developers, librarians, learning resource technicians, and counselors. Strategic current issues concerning educational personnel consist of quality, welfare, and preservice and inservice education.
When dealt with in the spirit of regional autonomy, these strategic issues will need a comprehensive policy at the national level that will provide a basis and at the same time coalescing ingredients for all educational personnel throughout the country so that they can become productive participants in regional and national development.
The national policy will be instrumental in achieving the objectives of national education and should become a facilitator for the appointment and mobility of educational personnel in all regions in the country.
Quantitatively, teachers constitute the largest portion of educational personnel and play a very strategic role in our nation building and development.
However, quantitative fulfillment is not always automatically reflected in qualitative stature. As regards teacher quality, we have witnessed and experienced different episodes in our educational arena indicating that it is not as simple matter as it would appear, and is supported by such other proximate factors as teacher welfare and teacher education -- two factors that are interdependent upon one another and need to be promoted within an effective and efficient educational management. In this regard, the concept of school-based management implemented within the spirit of decentralization has been brought to our schools' attention. This concept will only be fruitful if it is framed within a quality education policy that is well-founded at the national level.
Teacher support and welfare are commonly conceded as still being inadequate. This inapt degree of welfare has been publicly acknowledged as a triggering factor for the low social status and recognition of teachers in society, which, in turn, brings about a collapse in their commitment to their own profession. It has also been pointed out in various forums that the unacceptable level of welfare our educational personnel have been accorded to date has become one of the causes to the unattractiveness of the educational profession to high school graduates, the very people who are potential teachers.
Thus our efforts to maintain quality education have fallen into a vicious circle phenomenon -- where to begin creating a breakthrough undertaking is still an important question that policy and decision-makers must find an appropriate answer to. Although doubts has been cast here and there regarding teacher welfare as an effective point of departure for improving education in our country, I believe that this would be worth the effort and that it will have a snowball effect on the improvement in all aspects related to the preservice and inservice education of teachers.
The simple logic behind all these arguments is that when teacher support and welfare are attractive, the teaching profession as a whole will become an attractive profession that will draw better caliber candidates to it and, as a consequence, lift up and better synergize the teaching-learning activities that take place in teacher education institutes.
We are fully cognizant that the roles of teachers have a snowball effect on improving the state of the country, and that teacher roles will have a significant effect in creating a new generation of Indonesian people who are competitive in the regional and global setting. On Jan. 28, 1992, a framework agreement on enhancing economic cooperation was signed by six ASEAN leaders. AFTA (ASEAN Free Trade Area) is part of the framework agreement, which says, among other things, that all member states agree to establish and participate in the AFTA within 15 years.
Besides trade, the agreement also covers cooperation in industry, minerals, energy, finance, banking, food, agriculture, forestry and transportation. Other areas of cooperation include cooperation in research and development, technology transfer, tourism promotion, human resource development and other economy- related areas.
Cooperation in all these areas, especially in human resource development, has become a burning issue as it has forced us to assess seriously the quality and competitiveness of our existing human resources. Therefore we Indonesians need to realize that we live and work in a global marketplace for goods, services and ideas. As a result, we educators are confronted with a challenge to deliver school leavers who are competent not only to function professionally in an international environment, but who are also equipped to make personal and public-policy decisions as citizens of international society.
If in reality, the issue of teacher quality and welfare is not properly addressed by both the central and regional government, nothing beneficial can be expected in the bustling sphere of global competition.
What is the point of the regional autonomy law if it does not contribute to the betterment of education in each region? What is the point of enacting educational rules and regulations at the national level when the financial and managerial commitment to education is not fully serious? What's the point of engaging in political discourse when no meaningful action is taken at all levels of implementation?
In brief, sustaining quality education is no simple matter.