The same old mentality

Although teachers had not staged a protest since May last year, nobody was surprised when these educators were suddenly back in the news last week. As usual their grievances soon caught the attention of the public. This shows that the majority of Indonesians still pay them great respect and the public does not to want to see the teachers mistreated. Wasn't the word guru introduced by Hindu followers here many centuries ago, meaning spiritual teacher? What makes the story of the mismanagement of teachers more disturbing this time round is that it was perpetrated by the same old culprits: bureaucrats.

Our teachers have been poorly paid since the birth of the republic and as time went by the authorities chose to defend themselves rather than seek positive ways to enhance the teachers' welfare. They used to claim that the teacher's low salaries was a common phenomenon here. What they failed to recognize was the important role teachers played in the nation's character building and the training of its future leaders.

We heard stories of teachers moonlighting to make ends meet and that their salaries were unilaterally cut by the bureaucracy for unclear reasons. Under the regime of president Soeharto, teachers were not only forced to be members of Soeharto's political party, Golkar, but also once in five years they had to round up their students to vote for the party in the general election.

However, as social and economic conditions improved so did the teachers' lot, so the government propaganda machine claimed. But in Jakarta last year, as this country commemorated National Education Day, thousands of teachers staged a protest rally, marching from the State Palace to the House of Representatives (DPR), to demand a better salary. Their indignation was provoked by president Abdurrahman Wahid's surprising action to sharply increase the salaries of himself, his Cabinet ministers and the members of the House of Representatives.

To placate them Abdurrahman yielded and raised teachers' salaries to a level a little better than other civil servants. After the storm there was a calm.

However, trouble hit again last week. Thousands of primary and high school teachers in East Java went on strike demanding back pay for their salary increase which took effect in January this year. The same protest was also lodged by teachers in Palembang, Sumatra, and Kutai, East Kalimantan.

According to the central government the salaries of civil servants had been sent to the provinces on time. But local administrations seem to have used the funds on other projects, an official in Jakarta said on Friday. In Palembang a spokesman for the city administration said on Tuesday that the January to June back pay of civil servants, which included teachers, would be paid soon. Part of the back payment would be released soon, while the balance would be paid in the second week of December, just before the Muslim holiday, Idul Fitri.

The provincial governments have turned a deaf ear to the teacher's demand and many of them blamed the central government for the chaos. This mentality has been witnessed here for decades. Here, in any crisis, or even catastrophe, no one comes forward to claim responsibility, much less quit his or her post. They claim that to acknowledge responsibility is not part of the Indonesian culture.

What does this mean? Merely that in the future there will be more chaos.