W

hat are teachers expected to do to boost their performance amid an ever-changing and increasingly competitive environment?

In facing global competitiveness and job markets, teachers are now standing at the forefront of both knowledge production and dissemination. As a consequence, their working performance has hitherto come under close scrutiny by the institutions they work for. Teachers'€™ professional development has recently been the buzzword used to upgrade their performance in the pursuit of global competence.

Motivated by this global competence, one thing is pretty obvious '€” the pendulum seems to have swung away from an emphasis on teaching to that of research. In fact, most higher education institutions in Indonesia are beginning to impose stiff regulations on their staff members in order to boost their work performance, so that they can strive to compete globally. This regulation goes beyond issues related to professionalism in teaching; it is something akin to a '€œpublish or perish'€ dictum imposed by most universities overseas.

The Indonesian Directorate General of Higher Education (DIKTI) has become a contributing force in helping higher education institutions (both private and state-owned) uphold the imposed regulation. Funds are allocated to facilitate and encourage research activities, and awards are provided to acknowledge lecturers who manage to have their research published in reputable international journals.

In the context of transnational relations and increased global professionalism, the idea of increasing the amount of research activity is aimed at preparing lecturers nationwide to take part in contributing to a body of knowledge generated through research findings which are later reported in scholarly journals. This is an academic practice prevalent among academia in developing countries.

All of these endeavors should be lauded as part of the government'€™s consistent agenda to increase teachers'€™ professional development and competence '€” the other elements being pedagogical, social and personal competence.

Like in other professions, teachers are expected to carry out their duties at school professionally, such as making sure that their teaching techniques are effective, their assessment of students'€™ progress is reliable and their constant engagement with students bears fruitful results. They too work under pressure in order to achieve (sometimes unrealistic) targets set up by their institutions.

Ineluctably, the rapidly changing information about and contexts of pedagogy compel teachers to be professionally competent in their pedagogical practices. For instance, there are now increasing demands and teachers are expected to not only master techniques of teaching and teaching materials, but also to integrate them with information and technology for efficient and effective pedagogical practices to take place.

Also, as part of teachers'€™ professional development, the idea of teacher-researchers has often been brought up to suggest that teachers need to expand their role to be classroom researchers as well. With these dual roles, they can effectively help schools solve problems related to teaching and learning, and bridge the theory-practice gap which is often prevalent in pedagogy. In this sense, they are no longer consumers of knowledge who implement the agendas of others, but are professionals who always take the initiative in generating new insights into the pedagogical practices of both national and global fora.

Further, the radically changing pedagogical practices should not make teachers succumb to the conventional ways of teaching by asking students to do rote learning, which is devoid of learning contextualization (local as well as global). They do not have to uncritically accept and apply traditional educational practices. Instead, through their own rich classroom experiences, constant engagement with students and research, they need to help students find a link between what is learned at the normative level and what is actually happening in real-life situations.

In a similar vein, teachers need to shape and situate their pedagogic competence in the context of dynamically emerging perspectives. This means that teachers construct their pedagogies with sensitivity to students and flexibility to every emerging perspective during the teaching and learning processes.

Teaching, then, should be grounded from the bottom-up rather than top-down. It is dialogic rather than monologic, transformative rather than dogmatic and collaborative rather than independent. It is this pedagogical competence that a teacher must possess.

The bottom-up perspective in pedagogy is certainly amendable to the idea of building positive characters in students, with teachers playing a facilitative role. In this orientation, rather than applying what has been prescribed top-down, teachers garner and unearth the potentials each individual student has, make them known to the student and help them develop to their fullest.

Apart from professional and pedagogic competence, teachers are required to have social competence '€” a construct which obliges them to demonstrate prowess in interaction and communication with those involved in pedagogical practices.

In the context of transnational relations and diasporas, it is through such a dialogic engagement that a teacher must be able to explicitly articulate and foster the importance of being able to possess global competence and to communicate effectively across languages and cultures.

Finally, teachers need to develop their personal competence, which is mirrored by elements of personal conduct such as responsibility, integrity, commitment and pride in the profession. Surely, teachers ought to serve as role models to be emulated and as figures that set good examples and values for their students.
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The writer is associate professor of English at the School of Language and Education, Atma Jaya Catholic University, Jakarta. He can be contacted at setiono.sugihrato@gmail.com.