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Govt pledges to pay lecturers’ performance allowance amid mounting pressure
However, the ministry has stated it would not be able to compensate for incentives that have remained unpaid since 2020.
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Due credit: Lecturer Bayu Budiandrian works on his laptop on the sidelines of an interview session with The Jakarta Post at a café in Jakarta, on Jan. 15, 2025. Bayu, a civil servant lecturer at Singaperbangsa University in Karawang, West Java, shared his struggles as he must balance his tasks and obligations with low pay. (JP/Nur Janti)
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mid mounting protests from educators nationwide, the Higher Education, Science and Technology Ministry has pledged to provide performance allowances for lecturers starting this year.
The ministry, however, stated it would not be able to compensate for incentives that have remained unpaid since 2020.
This information was disclosed in a letter sent by the ministry's secretary-general, Togar Simatupang, to the heads of state-owned universities nationwide, Kompas reported.
In the letter, the ministry explained that bureaucratic issues and administrative changes due to its restructuring in recent years had prevented the disbursement of unpaid incentives to lecturers.
Management of higher education, including the oversight of lecturers' financial incentives, has shifted several times over the past 10 years.
In 2014, then-president Joko "Jokowi" Widodo moved the responsibility for higher education from the Education and Culture Ministry to the Research and Technology Ministry. After his re-election in 2019, Jokowi returned it to the Education and Culture Ministry, only to merge it with the Research and Technology Ministry two years later.
When President Prabowo Subianto assumed office in October of last year, he split the merged ministry into three separate entities, including the Higher Education, Science and Technology Ministry.
