In the Indonesian teacher education is provided by teacher institutions (teacher colleges or universities) and their in-service training is conducted by teacher training centres – locally known as BPG (Balai Pelatihan Guru, Teacher Training Centres) or PPPG (Pusat Pengembangan Penataran Guru, Teacher Training and Development Centre) (Note: recently it is known as Lembaga Penjamin Mutu Pendidikan or LPMP).
Teacher education is also seen as a formal educational process which is intended to ensure that the behaviour of prospective teachers matched those of “effective” teachers. Therefore, rigorous entry requirements are one key to ensuring that teachers have the knowledge and skills to help their students meet high standards (McAllister, 2003). However, it is difficult to achieve, especially, if the system has a shortage of teachers. During rapid educational expansion in the 1970-1980s many Indonesian primary and lower secondary prospective teachers were taught only in specialist lower and upper secondary schools (locally known as SPG or Sekolah Pendidikan Guru, Secondary School of Teachers). In this period, about ten thousand new classrooms were opened every year, and the government along with development agencies such as the World Bank established SPGs throughout the country in order to fulfil the need (Nielsen, 2003).
Furthermore, teacher education and training not only are classified as among the crucial determinants of school effectiveness and student achievement (Fuller, 1986) but also are perceived as central in any process of educational change (Davies, 2002). The literature also indicates that robust teacher preparation could help developing teachers’ understanding of learning philosophies, theories and principles, which, in turn, affects their pedagogical practice and students’ learning (Alexander et al, 1996; Gage, 1985). However, the effectiveness of this ‘teacher preparation’ in supporting teachers coping with work and reform process depends on its design and delivery (Schweisfurth, 2002: 32). If the design and delivery were ill initiated, the goals are certainly unachievable.
For instance, at the end of the expansion period of 1970-80s, MOEC’s official study on teacher competence showed that only 45 percent of a random sample of SPG-trained teachers could pass the science test given to the primary school completers (MOEC, 1990). In addition, the teachers were also found unable to use science equipment properly by claiming that they were not trained to do so and had no sufficient time to do experiments (Jiyono, 1986). Another study also found that teaching methods were seriously flawed, asserting that the average teacher failed to employ basic pedagogical tools such as clarifying learning objectives, explaining new concepts clearly, giving examples, stimulating thinking through appropriate questioning, and providing feedback on test results (Djalil, 1988).
"The World Bank Basic Education Study: Indonesia" concluded its section on teacher preparation with the following gloomy assessment:
"Pre-service training has relied upon inappropriate lecture methods and has provided insufficient opportunities for students to practice teaching skills. Despite tremendous efforts in recent years to improve SPG curricula and materials, pre-service teacher training is isolated from the realities of primary classrooms and teacher trainers are usually not themselves trained in primary methods". (World Bank, 1989 quoted in Nielsen, 2003)
Literature on teacher professionalism, for instance Goodson and Cole (1994: 88), suggest that one’s professional identity is influenced by factors and conditions inside and outside the teachers. Furthermore, in order to make the teachers become professional, Goodlad et al., (1990) suggest that it is important to have three criteria: (1) possessing a large degree of talent and skill; (2) using a body of knowledge that support their work; and (3) having the autonomy to make decisions that marry skills with knowledge.
However, it seems that many Indonesian teachers could hardly be ‘categorised’ as professional since they inherited personal, institutional and policy related problems, because (1) many prospective teachers entered the profession not because they possessed talent and skills of teaching, but rather were ‘forced’ by personal and financial conditions, such as inability to enter their expected majors in university or failed to find good jobs in the market, (2) many teacher institutions (SPG in the past, IKIP/universities and BPG/PPPG at the present) were operating in poor quality; and (3) teachers had superficial autonomy and struggled to balance between targets and their actual capacity to do their job. Therefore, the argument that professional teachers must be effective in their jobs (Stodolsky and Grossman, 2000) cannot be realised if the inherited problems above are not alleviated.
Furthermore, after a long period concentrating on expansion rather than quality, in the 1990s, the Indonesian government finally ‘committed itself’ to emphasizing the quality of teachers’ professional development, for example, by phasing out its SPG programmes for prospective primary teachers and replacing them with a two-year post-secondary diploma programme (Diploma II) and increasing the secondary teacher education standard to bachelor degree. During this period, hundreds of thousands of both practising and prospective teachers had to study in teacher colleges and universities to get their ‘professionalism’ improved and to get their certificates for the teaching profession.
However, the movement was rather focussed on the improving the teachers’ qualifications, not the quality (Nielsen, 2003). Many believed that the government’s efforts to improve teacher education (and training) were designed and delivered rather to achieve ‘project-oriented’ goals than genuinely to improve their knowledge and skills (Mawardi, 2004). The ‘project oriented programme’ locally is perceived negative by the Indonesian since it refers to creating a perfunctorily programme which prioritised on quantitative targets, such as getting the project done as quick as possible, without considering the quality of it, such as lack of control measurement.
In addition, this practice was worsened by the lack of administrative capacity to handle large scale reforms in the centre, which left a small number of senior administrators initiating, implementing and supervising the huge numbers of projects; it was almost impossible for them to ensure the quality control of their projects. In fact, hundreds of thousands of teachers were actually going through an upgrading course that had been acknowledged to be poor in quality (Nielsen, 2003). The result of this was not that surprising. For example, MONE’s official study in five provinces, for instance, showed that only 42.71 percent of a random sample of secondary teachers could pass the competence test (MONE, 2001b). These results showed the effectiveness of the teacher preparation was far from expected since its design and delivery were poor and not genuinely made to improve their knowledge and skills.
Since decentralization began in 2001, the central government’s policy regarding teacher education and training remained unchanged.
In 2002, a new model of teacher in-service training was launched ‘emphasising’ the teachers’ quality. The so called competence-based integrated training programme focused on combining a wide range of knowledge and skills needed by teachers to achieve the teacher competence into single, integrated training. Slamet (2002), one of the programme’s designers, suggested that this model would be more effective and efficient than those in the past which were regarded as partial and isolated in order to form an intact teachers’ competence. However, little is known about whether this training model has succeeded to achieve its goals.
During decentralization, there was also a tendency that local governments did not prioritize teachers’ education and professional development in their education related policies. This could be traced from the perception that there were only a small number of partnership programmes, aimed at professional development, among schools, higher education institutions and other appropriate entities, since decentralisation (Supriyoko, 2002b). Supriyoko suggests that recent low educational quality relates to the teachers’ insufficient opportunities to follow further qualification programme, training, seminars and workshops. Unsurprisingly, during decentralisation, data suggests that teachers’ unqualified and under trained cases remained high. MONE recent data showed that from 137,069 pre-school teachers, only 12,929 of them or 9.43 per cent were qualified to teach. Similarly, qualified teachers were only 50.67 per cent out of 625,710 primary teachers, 64.08 per cent out of 299,105 lower secondary teachers, and 63.02 per cent out of 377.673 upper secondary teachers (Suyanto, 2004).
Meanwhile, at the institution level, LEA and school’s bureaucratic and authoritarian system also hindered the teachers’ professional development. For instance, in my own personal experience it was not uncommon to find cases such as many practicing teachers who taught for many years without having a single training since recruitment, while some had different types of training because of bribing the LEA’s officials to get included the programme. Some the head teachers also had prevented some teachers to follow the programme due to ‘fear of rivalry’ for their leadership position at schools.
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