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Saturday, January 07, 2006

Teacher’s Status in Indonesia

Historically, Indonesian teachers have always been burdened by targets, policy changes and educational reforms from governments. One of the consequences of these continuous changes was degradation of the professional status, which left the profession considered a second rate, stressful, and unattractive walk of life. During the colonialism era, often perceived as the Golden Era of Indonesian teachers (Tilaar, 2001, Fatoni, 2005), the teachers - locally renowned as ‘guru‘ or noble and wise being - enjoyed high, sacramental status and, therefore, became the natural leaders in society (Tilaar, 2001). The gurus were even positioned as one of three highly respectable positions in the previous society: ‘guru, leader and elderly’ (Dananjaya, 2000).

The teaching profession was perceived to play an important role in promoting societal emancipation, humanizing society and constructing personal and national characters. Therefore, candidates for teaching were those who had high academic record in their previous study level and were trained in high profile teachers’ institutions. Teachers also received a high salary, twice what a doctor could earn (Tokoh Indonesia, 2004). Also their teaching profession could earn them better status or position in the society, for example, Indonesian first President, Soekarno, and Indonesian Prime Minister, Mohammad Natsir, used to be teachers before gaining their political power in the country (Adiartanto, 2002).

Although education was primarily used as a means for preparing skilled manpower for colonial government’s needs to run the country and its apparatus of production, however, Indonesian teachers also used education for educating indigenous people and promoting independence awareness among them. For instance, in the early 1920s some nationalistic and religion based schools (Taman Siswa or Students’ Garden schools and Muhammadiyah schools) were operating, and the teachers, especially at Taman Siswa schools, set their own curriculum by combining subjects from European schools (e.g. mathematics, geography, history, natural science) with Indonesian culture related subjects (e.g. language, literature, social custom and arts) (Bray and Thomas, 1998:14). It is obvious that during the colonial era, the teachers had the highest power their professions have had in Indonesian history.

In contrast, when the New Order governments came to power, the teaching status of teachers severely declined. The needs for national development such as preparing citizens and skilled manpower through universal basic education expansion, which required the training of a large number of teachers most in short time, led to the reduction of the standard of entry requirements for the teaching profession (Tilaar, 2001). This, in turn, declined the status of teachers as the teaching profession became a second rate job and those who entered teacher colleges were those who failed to get places in common institutions or failed to get employment they expected in the job markets. The remuneration the teachers received was also poor; they had to have second or third jobs or held demonstrations or strikes demanding for salary increase before parliament office in order to survive (Adiartanto, 2002).

Furthermore, their autonomy, professionalism and pedagogy were tightly controlled by the state through national curriculum and assessment, state legislation and government targets, and so on. The most dismaying fact, perhaps, is that teachers’ status became next to nothing since political oppression almost wrote off their great influence they used to have in the past.

Dananjaya, 2000 describes it as follows:
"… teachers became political assets …who were mobilised to support the ruling regime. This was systematically politicization that made even the most critical teachers lose their minds. Teachers became impotent and lost their creative energy. Teachers became submissive and spread their virus of self submission to the ruler’s power. Their self pride slumped dramatically, their charisma was weak. They lost their self esteem and lost their self pride of their profession. If there was sympathy for teachers, it was not given because of their professionalism, but rather a pity for to their unfortunate destiny".

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