Teachers to go back to campus
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Some 500 elementary school teachers of state schools will have the chance to go back to university as the city administration and the Ministry of National Education are launching a program to send them to the University of Indonesia (UI) to enable them to earn a degree.
The Jakarta education and training office head, Ahyat M. Awe, said that only some 4,000 out of a total of 24,620 elementary school teachers in the city were university graduates. The rest only have a teaching diploma.
"In the Thousands Island regency, there is only one elementary school teacher out of 129 teachers who has graduated from university," he said on Wednesday.
The fact that only 16.25 percent of elementary school teachers are university graduates has been a concern for the administration.
"We are worried about the quality of our children's level of education five years from now considering that their teachers are not even university graduates," he said, as quoted by beritajakarta.com.
The program is a pilot project and will be fully financed by the ministry.
Ahyat said that the selection of teachers would take place in December and those who passed would start their studies at UI next March.
The 500 teachers will study for around 18 months, depending on their major.
"Many teachers have shown great interest to join the selection process. The selection itself will also include officials from the city elementary education agency and the city personnel office," he said.
Meanwhile, the City Council called on the administration to improve teachers' welfare by increasing their monthly salary from around Rp 1 million (US$117.65) to around Rp 2.5 million.
"Councillors will discuss the matter with the administration to find the budget allocation. Actually, there are many city assets, which are currently managed by the central government, that have yet to be returned to the city including the toll roads and seaport," said Audi Tambunan, secretary of the Council's Commission E overseeing social welfare.
Audi said that the raise would be included in the 2004 city budget.
Besides receiving a monthly salary, starting January teachers also receive an additional allowance of Rp 600,000.