Teachers to go back to campus

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.