Teachers make selfish demand

Teachers make selfish demand

From Suara Karya

While Indonesia is still in the throes of a deep economic crisis, the government has, quite daringly, decided to raise the salaries of civil servants and members of the military and the police by quite a small percentage (30 percent). To us this salary increase is quite a relief, especially considering the still unfavorable condition of the country.

Unfortunately, the government's good intention has not earned a good welcome from the teachers, who are also our fellow civil servants, although teachers' functional allowance has been raised by 100 percent.

Teachers have staged rallies in a number of regions and a rally has been held at the House of People's Representatives in Senayan, Jakarta. The rallying teachers have asked for a raise of 300 percent, arguing that their present salaries are far from enough to feed their families.

In fact, teachers' problems are the same as for all civil servants, including members of the military and the police because salary administration for civil servants is the same in all ministries. Differences lie only in the amounts of their allowances.

Apart from making an unreasonable demand for a salary increase, our fellow civil servants, the teachers, have also demanded that their functional allowance rate be brought on the same level as that of university lecturers. They also envy agricultural counselors, arguing that the latter's functional allowance is bigger than that of teachers.

In fact, the difference is not really significant. It is a shame that in this context, the rallying teachers have said words disparaging the profession of an agricultural counselor. They say that agricultural counselors are assigned only to breed "mujair" freshwater fish but their allowance is higher than that of teachers. It is clear that these teachers know little about the jobs of an agricultural counselor; therefore, their comment is meaningless.

We must all realize that all civil servant jobs are serious and difficult ones (this applies to all ministries, so the job of an agricultural counselor is also serious and difficult). When a teacher comes to school to teach, his or her pupils are ready in a relatively comfortable room. Agricultural counselors and other non-formal instructors, however, must gather the farmers in the middle of a rice field under the scorching sun.

In building our beloved country, we need not claim ourselves as parties with the greatest merit. All ministries are of equal importance and cannot run alone. Therefore, the government should not be discriminatory in promoting the welfare of civil servants.

We are very worried that if the government meets this unreasonable demand and ignores other (non-teacher) civil servants, the following may take place: 1. Massive rallies will be staged by non-teacher civilian civil servants to demand an increase in their salaries and allowances; 2. Many private schools will be closed down because they will be financially incapable of paying teachers' salaries; 3. The rate of inflation will soar so that the common people will have to go through the greatest sufferings.

May the decision makers may take into account what I have written above.

SRI HARJANTO

On behalf of Agricultural Counselors

in Pemalang Regency

Central Java