National Education Day was celebrated on May 2, and we still need to examine children’s education in isolated places. A teacher in Aurimi public elementary school in Sarmi regency, Papua, shared a main key to education in Papua: “To teach in Papua, the first thing to do is to raise students’ interest in learning and make them love their teachers so they are eager to go to school.”

A recently published study by Article 33, an independent group, shows that the government’s Frontline Teacher Program (GGD) and Frontline School Program (SGD) have positive impacts on learning interest in remote areas. The program has successfully improved the national exam scores among students and reduced the gap of students’ academic achievements within every school.

Indeed, teachers have the greatest impact on student’s learning process, as researchers have confirmed.

The above evaluation of both programs shows one objective has been achieved, to better spread quality education, in line with President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s focus on “developing the nation from the periphery”.

The Education and Culture Ministry has gradually improved teacher recruitment more than tenfold since 2015, from 798 teachers, to over 9,000 teachers last year. Almost all graduated from college between 2010 and 2013, and most of them are under 30 years old.

Therefore, we have legitimate optimism that the young teachers will be the new force of change in our education system. They will be awarded the much coveted civil employment status upon completing their duty in the GGD program.

Hopefully, they will continue working in remote schools and give more significant positive impacts in the areas.

Teachers’ performance has been a problem for some time. A 2014 survey by the Analytical and Capacity Development Partnership-Indonesia, a project supported by Australia and the European Union, showed that one in five teachers in remote schools was absent, when researchers made unannounced visits to classes in study hours. Various studies correlate teacher absenteeism with student absence, drop-out rates and poor learning outcomes. One way to address teachers’ absenteeism has been involving parents and the community in “supervising” the teachers attendance.

The World Bank launched a program called KIAT Guru Pilot to improve teacher presence and service performance by empowering communities and tying teacher allowances to performance. The project is a collaboration between the ministry, the National Team for Acceleration of Poverty Reduction (TNP2K) and the regental governments of Ketapang, Sintang and Landak in West Kalimantan and East Manggarai and West Manggarai in Flores, East Nusa Tenggara. In 2016, the World Bank scaled up the pilot program with trust funds totalling US$6.5 million from Australia and the United States Agency for International Development, implemented by Yayasan BaKTI.

In addition to adequate teachers’ compensation in the form of remuneration and employment status, education policies must also make clear measurements in innovation by the teachers, including measures that drive the application of teaching consistently. In the North Kalimantan regencies of Bulungan and Malinau, an initiative supported by Australia’s government, “Inovasi”, strengthens literacy learning in early education, with material based on the local context.

The Yayasan Gerakan Indonesia Mengajar (Indonesia Teaches Foundation) program initiated by Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan before he became education minister, has been dispatching creative and dynamic young people in teaching and learning. Recruiting bright young minds fresh from college graduation, the program has sent around 916 young teachers in 17 batches to remote areas in Indonesia since 2010.

This Indonesia Mengajar initiative is as innovative as the World Bank pilot project, but both are very limited in scale. They are no match for the government’s massive GGD program. Yet, both programs have important and significant impacts on the schooling system in many remote areas. Remote must no longer mean backwardness or abandoned. Teacher absenteeism in these areas is declining, and teachers are becoming more creative.

Our homework now is figuring out how to combine the quality of the World Bank’s KIAT pilot project and the Indonesia Mengajar initiative with the quantity effect of the GGD program. This requires the more active role of regional governments. Central and local governments along with public schools must also involve parents and encourage community support.

The Article 33 study also concludes that the GGD program still depends on regional initiatives, so that regions with leaders and administrators with strong motivation to improve teacher management benefit greatly, while regions lacking such motivation lose the opportunity to participate. Good collaboration between the ministry and local governments will provide a sound base to further develop the GGD program. Meanwhile, content-wise, the Frontline Teacher Program can adopt many lessons learned from many private and international pilot programs.

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The writer is a researcher and associate professor at Paramadina University, and guest doctoral examiner at Jakarta State University (UNJ).

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