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n Asyukur, an early childhood education unit in Menteng, Central Jakarta, four teachers teach children aged four to five how to read and count.

Often established as a community initiative, the unit, locally known as PAUD, is common in the country, offering preschool education to young children of middle-lower groups in society who cannot afford to send their children to a proper preschool institution.

Asyukur has 42 students, nine of whom do not pay any tuition fees because they are either orphans or very poor.

The four teachers usually collect between Rp 1.5 million (US$111) to Rp 2 million per month, which is split among the four of them.

When the city administration announced a plan to provide an allowance for PAUD teachers, one of them, Erni Lisnawati, 43, was delighted. She had been earning an irregular income from PAUD, which is located on Jl. Tambak in Menteng, because parents are not obligated to pay.

“It is up to the parents’ sincerity; sometimes they pay Rp 50,000 per month, sometimes nothing at all,” Erni said.

Each of the four teachers in PAUD is responsible for handling 10 to 15 children from 8 to 11 a.m. They teach numbers, reading, writing and other subjects appropriate for children aged four to five who have not yet begun kindergarten.

Some of the students were too young to enter kindergarten, Erni said, “but most of them enter PAUD because their parents think preschool is important.”

In an attempt to develop herself and other teachers, Erni is active in the Central Jakarta chapter of the Association of Indonesian Educators and Teaching Practitioners for Early Childhood Education (Himpaudi).

The association recently caught the public’s attention after being granted Rp 40.2 billion from the city administration’s 2018 budget.

Some thought it was a bogus budget post due to a false address being listed in the draft budget.

The city administration has set aside funds for three teacher organizations in its 2018 draft budget. In addition to Himpaudi, the Indonesian Teachers Union (PGRI) will receive Rp 367 billion and the Indonesian Association of Kindergarten Teachers (IGTKI) will receive Rp 23.5 billion.

Himpaudi’s address in the 2018 draft city budget was listed as Jl. Poltangan Raya, No. 25, RW 9, in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta. The address was reportedly wrong and is actually located on RW 5 on the same street.

The association’s Jakarta-chapter chairman, Yufi A.M. Natakusumah, said the address was used for correspondence purposes only, while regular meetings would take place at PAUD Matahari in Patra Kuningan, South Jakarta.

“We do not use PAUD Matahari’s address because letters usually arrive in the late afternoon, when most teachers have gone home. If we use the office’s address, letters can still be received,” she said.

The Jakarta chapter was established in 2006 and now has more than 7,400 members.

The association estimated there were 12,000 early childhood education teachers in the city. The remaining teachers are not members of the association because they are not registered in the Education and Culture Ministry’s education data center (Dapodik) or because they registered under other organizations, such as the PGRI, Yufi said.

She admitted only 20 percent of PAUD teachers had a bachelor’s degree, with most of the teachers having only completed high school or even junior high school.

Last year, the central government, through the ministry, had planned to make it compulsory for parents to enroll their children in PAUD before entering kindergarten.

The ministry allocated Rp 2.4 trillion in special allocation funds for 190,000 PAUD institutions in the country.

The association said teachers have received incentives from the central government over the years, but it was limited and irregular. Yufi said some teachers received around Rp 600,000 to Rp 1,5 million each year, while in 2010 and 2011 the ministry did not disburse any incentives.