Unair Lecturer Reveals Rp2.6 Million Monthly Salary Despite 16-Year Career, Sparks Judicial Review

A lecturer at Airlangga University (Unair), Cenuk Widiyastrisna Sayekti, has revealed that she receives a base salary of only Rp2.6 million per month, despite having worked as a lecturer for 16 years and holding a doctorate from an overseas university. Her testimony went viral after she appeared as a witness in a plenary session at the Constitutional Court (MK) on Tuesday, during a judicial review of Law Number 14 of 2005 concerning Teachers and Lecturers. Cenuk, a non-civil servant (non-ASN) permanent lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Unair, stated that she began her career as a lecturer in 2010 at Lancang Kuning University with a salary of Rp1.2 million per month. After completing her doctoral studies at Macquarie University, Australia, in 2016 and obtaining her lecturer certification (Serdos) in 2020, she moved to Unair in 2022. Her initial salary at the state university in Surabaya, East Java, was Rp2.6 million, a figure that has remained unchanged. “This means that after more than a decade of a career as a lecturer, completing a doctorate, and obtaining a teaching certificate, my base income as a permanent lecturer remains at a very limited level,” Cenuk said. She explained that her total monthly income for the last three months was Rp3.3 million, which included the base salary plus a professional allowance for her academic position, meal allowance, and a rice allowance. Cenuk highlighted that the core issue is not just the small nominal amount, but that the welfare of lecturers does not rest on a sufficiently strong base salary. She also noted the precarious nature of her income, as the certification allowance is dependent on meeting bureaucratic requirements. “This semester, my lecturer performance load was declared ‘not fulfilled’, which means next semester I will not receive the lecturer certification allowance,” she added. The judicial review was filed by the Campus Workers Union (SPK). The petitioners are asking the Constitutional Court to interpret the law to ensure that a lecturer’s base salary is at least equivalent to the regional minimum wage (UMR) of the area where the campus is located. SPK Research Team Head Rizma Afian Azhiim argued that the 2003 Manpower Law provides clear parameters for a decent living through the minimum wage, but the 2005 Teacher and Lecturer Law replaced this with the term ‘minimum living needs’ without ever creating concrete parameters, which is the root of the problem. He stated that the lack of a standard leaves lecturers, especially those early in their careers who only receive a base salary without allowances, without adequate income protection, creating a form of discrimination against the academic profession.