West Java struggles with decade-long teacher crisis

Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Bandung

West Java, a large province closest to the capital, Jakarta, has hidden its decade-long teacher crisis behind its achievements in the field of education.

The province is known nationwide for its prestigious Padjadjaran and Parahyangan Universities, the Bandung Institute of Technology and Bogor Institute of Agriculture, but almost all elementary and high schools in remote areas of the province are short of a total of 60,000 teaching staff.

It is no longer surprising to see that a teacher has to teach two classes or more in elementary and high schools in remote subdistricts in Cianjur, Sukabumi, Indramayu, Majalengka, Depok and Bogor.

Iim Wasliman, deputy chief of the West Java education and culture office, said the province was lacking around 60,000 teaching staff for around 24,000 elementary schools and 40,000 others for 12,000 junior and high schools.

"The teacher shortages were felt over the last eight years after the provincial administration had a zero-growth policy on civil servant recruitment, while 3,000 to 4,000 teachers annually have reached the mandatory pension age and there has been no new recruitment to replace them," he said.

Wasliman conceded the teacher shortages had resulted in a serious negative impact on the quality both of school graduates and human resources in the province.

"For example, many elementary school graduates in rural areas in many subdistricts could not read fluently and the quality of high school graduates in the province is really below the national standard," he said.

Wasliman said his office had several times raised the education issue at the coordination meeting with the governor and with universities that were running education and teaching programs, but so far no comprehensive solution has been found to address the problem.

Many state- and private-run universities running teaching programs have encouraged their graduates to fill vacancies in schools that are short of teaching staff but many were not interested in the offer, or did not continue at their schools because besides being lowly paid, they were placed in schools remote from urban areas.

Many teachers do not feel at home at their place of assignment because of their temporary status and half pay, he said, "And most teachers who are employed under such nonpermanent status in rural and remote areas, have left their work place and sought other jobs at factories in urban areas."

"Teaching is a noble and respectable profession but we have not yet given it the respect it deserves," he said.

Chairman of the West Java legislature's Commission E on education and labor affairs Euchiyat Noor said the legislature had several times asked the provincial administration to rescind the zero-growth policy and set up a joint team to upgrade the status of honorary teachers in all state-run schools to permanent. They would have more certainty under this arrangement, but, so far, the provincial administration had been faced with financial problems in this matter.

"So far, the nonpermanent teachers have helped the education programs in elementary and high schools but we have failed to acknowledge their dedication and to improve their conditions of service," he said when receiving 300 nonpermanent teachers here recently.

Ruchyat concurred and said the government should launch an education program in urban areas to improve the awareness of local people of the importance of education.

"Many people could not afford to send their children to schools because of financial problems, resulting in a low quality of human resources and a high illiteracy rate in the province," he said.

He cited, for example, that only one in three school-age children in remote areas in Indramayu, Sukabumi and Cianjur in the province went to school and that was why numerous people, mostly unskilled, from the regencies went abroad to seek employment.

According to him, the provincial government should ask for increased funding from the central government to finance the recruitment of more new teachers and to upgrade all the nonpermanent teaching staff in order to cope with the teacher shortages.

"We should feel ashamed because the province has many prestigious universities, institutes and academies, but local people cannot benefit from them because of financial difficulties," he said.