Writing skills and teachers' pay

While fully agreeing with Mr Alwasilah about the country's intellectuals' lack of writing skills, as expounded in his article Intellectuals lack writing skills (Jan. 3), I cannot help thinking that one most important point is missing from the article.

In a writing class, students will not be taught the mechanism of writing only, but rather will have to produce well-written compositions. In order that a student may have good writing skills, his work must be meticulously corrected in terms of coherence and cohesion.

It is common that in Indonesia, a class generally consists of 30 to 50 students. How can a writing instructor be expected to teach writing effectively if he has to correct about 40 pieces of writing, each containing about 150 to 200 words. Remember, at a later stage, a student will have to write an essay of 2,000 to 3,000 words. Just imagine how exhausting this correction work will be. The point is: Will the teacher have enough time to do this? Also remember that one composition must be rewritten two or three times before it can be considered correct.

So, ideally, a writing class should comprise 10 students. This means that a class of 50 must be split into five. The crux of the matter is whether or not universities are willing to fork out money to pay for additional writing instructors. If they do, then there will be no problem.

Another factor is the generally meager income of a university lecturer. I have been teaching in one of the oldest private universities in Indonesia for close to 21 years now and as a nonpermanent lecturer, teaching eight hours a week, I make roughly US$25 a month (at $1 = Rp 10,000).

A permanent lecturer teaching more hours will earn slightly more. I believe that in general, university lecturers across the country will not differ much in terms of income. So, how can you expect a meagerly paid writing instructor to teach at one place and concentrate on his subject.

To make both ends meet, it is common for a university lecturer, especially one who is also a breadwinner, to hop from one place to another, teaching the same subject. The problem is whether in such a condition a writing instructor can do his job as required.

To sum up, besides an excellent writing curriculum, one important factor is the readiness of universities to make writing classes a special program. One that, unfortunately, would entail allocating a special budget to ensure that a writing instructor will do his job properly. Otherwise, no matter how excellent a writing program is, the result will never be satisfactory.

LIE HUA

Jakarta