Teachers' allowance

Teachers' allowance

From Media Indonesia

The government has decided to raise, as of August 2002, the functional allowance for teachers by 50 percent to 60 percent. Teachers should warmly welcome this good news as it may improve their welfare.

But this time the government must ensure that teachers enjoy the increase fully, not like in the past when an increase would be followed by deductions for certain things. The government, for example, must ensure that all schools are informed about this increase.

It is our hope that this increase will improve not only teachers' welfare, but, more importantly, the quality of our educational system in general. It is useless to raise teachers' income if the level of education remains low.

The government must also be aware that one of the reasons why our educational system is so poor is that some schools, in their eager pursuit of money, accept new students without going through the proper mechanisms or procedures.

To return to the raise of the teachers' functional allowance, although it is still relatively small in amount, it shows that the government has not forgotten about teachers, the group of people who help shape the nation's future leaders.

KAFYUS RIZAL, Jakarta