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