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Solution for contract teachers: Stable jobs, but in remote areas
Labor uncertainty: Contract workers from state institutions from across the country demonstrate outside the State Palace in Jakarta on Thursday
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Labor uncertainty: Contract workers from state institutions from across the country demonstrate outside the State Palace in Jakarta on Thursday. After many years of part-time employment, they demanded that the government promote their status to that of civil servants. The placard held up by a teacher reads, âWe are not slavesâ.(JP/Seto Wardhana) (JP/Seto Wardhana)
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span class="inline inline-center">Labor uncertainty: Contract workers from state institutions from across the country demonstrate outside the State Palace in Jakarta on Thursday. After many years of part-time employment, they demanded that the government promote their status to that of civil servants. The placard held up by a teacher reads, 'We are not slaves'.(JP/Seto Wardhana)
The government will not accede to the demand by thousands of contract teachers for an upgrade to civil servant status, which would guarantee a stable income and pension, unless they are willing to be redeployed to remote areas of the archipelago.
The policy is the final solution offered by the Culture and Education Ministry to resolve the protracted problem of the status of thousands of contract teachers recruited by local administrations to teach in state-funded schools without undergoing the proper hiring system.
Following the biggest rally ever held by the teachers from Wednesday until Friday in Jakarta, Culture and Education Minister Anies Baswedan promised to grant them an immediate status change if they were willing to join the so-called Teachers on the Frontline (GGD) program.
Under the program, qualified teachers are sent to teach in remote regions such as Papua, the country's most remote and poorest province or in other poor provinces in Kalimantan and Sulawesi.
'We have requested the Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Ministry to hire 3,500 teachers to teach in remote regions and we are prioritizing those who have teaching experience,' Anies said.
However, Anies expressed doubt that contract teachers would apply for the program as many had demanded civil servant status in the region they were already settled, mostly in Java.
The former Paramadina University rector emphasized that the education sector's most pressing issue right now was how to redistribute the large number of teachers so that there were enough teachers in every region.
Anies blamed the problems of contract teachers on local administrations as the central government no longer hired such teachers.
'School principals, foundations and provincial administrations are the ones who hire these contract teachers,' he said.
'The central government no longer hires them but it is being forced now to change their status. There are also questions over their recruitment, which was conducted without careful consideration.'
Anies said there had been an 860 percent rise in the number of contract teachers in the past 15 years, from 84,600 in the 1999-2000 academic year to 812,064 in the 2014-2015 year.
Anies explained that in November 2013, the Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Ministry decided that teachers who wished to have their status elevated must first take a competency test.
Around 605,000 out of 650,000 contract teachers nationwide opted to take the test. However, Anies said only 166,000 teachers passed and gained civil servant status.
'I will repeat it to be clear: 439,000 out of 605,000 honorary teachers did not past the competency test and so their status was not changed,' said Anies.
'These teachers are the ones who are demanding to become civil servant teachers even though they do not meet the required competence to be a teacher,' he said.
Around 5,000 contract teachers rallied in front of the State Palace in Central Jakarta, demanding that the government elevate their status and that President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo meet them.
State Secretary M. Pratikno received a delegation of the protesters in a closed-door meeting on behalf of the President, who was on a working trip to Lampung.
However, Titi Purwaningsih, the head of the contract teachers forum, appeared unhappy with the meeting, claiming it was a waste of time.
'Today's meeting with Pratikno achieved nothing,' she said.
'We demanded to meet the President and asked them to schedule it, but we've received no certainty yet on the timing,' said Titi who has been a contract teacher at an elementary school in Central Java for 12 years.
She also expressed doubts over Anies' offer to have them placed in remote locations in exchange for the status upgrade.
Pratikno said a meeting with the President was not possible on Friday due to his tight schedule, saying that he could not promise them anything. But he assured them that he would inform the President of their demands.
'What is important is that their aspirations will be passed to the President.'
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