Teaching on Bawean island requires rare dedication

Teaching on Bawean island requires rare dedication

Indra Harsaputra, The Jakarta Post, Bawean Island

The principal of a state elementary school in Tambak district,
Nursyahid, hurriedly entered the seven-meter-by-eight-meter
classroom.

"I am late because my motorcycle broke down on my way here,"
Nursyahid told his pupils.

A few moments later, he took out a pencil from his shirt
pocket and took the roll call of fourth to sixth graders in the
Teluk Dalam Dawang elementary school on Bawean Island.

Nursyahid has to travel seven kilometers from his house to the
school over rough terrain due to the lack of access roads. During
the rainy season he is often injured when he falls of his
motorcycle. Also, the bike often breaks down due to the
treacherous conditions of roads. Furthermore, he has to teach
both the first and sixth graders, numbering 48 pupils in total,
in turns, because there is no other teacher to replace him.

"That's the challenge of becoming a teacher and at the same
time a principal as well as a school administrative staffer in an
isolated area. Many teachers have resigned because of the job
conditions, including the low salary," said Nursyahid, who has
been teaching at the same school for 10 years and now receives a
salary of Rp 1 million as a civil servant. He said that he would
continue teaching as he loved to teach and his family had been
living on the island since 1974.

M. Yasin, former principal and teacher at another school in
Bawean, chose to resign as a teacher in 1992 due to the low pay
and heavy workload of the job.

The native resident of Bawean is now involved in the onyx
stone polishing business and is able to enjoy an income of around
Rp 6.5 million per month, a considerable amount compared to his
salary of Rp 600,000 per month as a teacher in 1992.

"I'm better off financially now compared to when I was a
teacher and could only eat sweet potatoes. I can buy hectares of
land after becoming a businessman," he said.

The head of Sangkapura district education and culture
suboffice in Bawean, Zulfa Usman, acknowledges that teaching on
the island, which lies about 150 km from Surabaya, requires
determination.

Zulfa said many teachers from Surabaya, Gresik and other
cities in East Java quit their teaching posts in Bawean nearly
every year due to unfavorable conditions such as the rundown
school buildings, poor accessibility and the distance between
their hometown and Bawean.

Data from the office indicates that there are 281 teachers in
the two districts of Bawean, Tambak and Sangkapura, who teach
10,567 students in 121 schools from kindergarten to senior high
school levels.

"There is still an undersupply of teachers in Bawean and it is
hard to find teachers who want to work here," Zulfa told the
Post.

- Related story on page 17