the inequal distribution of teachers in papua

8/10/2019 The Inequal distribution of teachers in Papua

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ISSUES SURROUNDING THE UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF TEACHERS

THROUGHOUT PAPUA, INDONESIA

INTRODUCTION

It is increasingly recognized that a high quality of education is one of the goals

that Indonesia as a developing country must obtain in order to be prosperous

and be developed. Yulaelawati (2002) suggested that to attain a better economy

and democratic system in the future, Indonesia must gain high competencies in

its education. However, the reality shows the equity of access to education still

becomes the major problem (Suryadarma and Jones, 2013). As a result, there

still encountered quality gaps between schools throughout Indonesia including

those in Papua. The fact that Papua has highly varied topography, rural schools

in this province face major problems in terms of accessibility to good education,

including the inequitable deployment of teacher throughout Papua, which will be

discussed in this paper. Therefore, this paper will firstly outline the problems of

teachers’ distribution in Papua, focusing on the procedure of recruiting and

posting the teachers, the impact of Special Autonomy Law and teachers’ location

choice. Next, recommendation, which include the improvement of infrastructure,

supervision of the recruitment and placement process, centralisation, and the

provision of compensation, will be offered.

The recruitment and placement process

The distribution of teachers is mainly determined by the recruitment and

placement process of teachers. To hire new teachers, the selection officials must



observe the potential teachers, screen them based on the required criteria and

post them to the area in which they fit with the needs of schools (Wise et al.,

1987). This process is not an easy duty for Papuan government. The main reason

for this is that Papua has difficult topography, consisting of coastal/low land and

high land areas, and this leads to the system of recruiting and placement of

teachers throughout Papua to become more complex. Even decentralization,

which has shifted the distribution of teachers from central government to local

government, has not adequately been able to solve this problem. The shift of this

authority has instead triggered the unethical actions performed by local

government in recruiting and placing teachers. The most salient actions are

bribery and the use of “mutually beneficial relationship” (Mollet, 2011, p. 234)

between the novice teachers and the officials within the recruitment and

placement process. The criteria of being qualified teachers are not anymore

counted on as the novice teachers are able to pay the officers to facilitate their

recruitment regardless of the fulfillment of the requirement. In Mimika regency,

for instance, the writer observed a teacher fellow who admitted a payment of 15

million Indonesian Rupiah, allegedly entangling the officers whose authority was

in charge of the selection and placement process. Surprisingly, this phenomenon

becomes what so called “public secret”. In addit ion, “most single and female

teachers are not attracted to teach in rural schools and they bribe the officers to

avoid the placement to rural areas” (U4, 2006, p.6). This undoubtedly

exacerbates the distribution of teachers because this will provide opportunities

for novice teachers to invariably choose urban areas instead of rural areas.



Additionally, the regional education department do not have sufficient mapping

of teachers. Despite that each school in Papua is obliged to submit monthly

report to the Local Education Agency comprising the data of teachers, students,

and facilities, these information has not been given much attention to generate

the mapping of teachers availability. For example, in SMA Negeri 2 Mimika,

where the writer currently works, there has been a lack of teachers in particular

subjects such as Math, English, and Indonesian. However, when there was a new

hire of teachers, the government normally places them in schools in urban areas,

which already has adequate teachers in respective subject. As a result, rural

school like SMAN 2 Mimika still has insufficient numbers of teachers.

The implementation of regional autonomy/ Special Autonomy Law

As mentioned above, the decentralization of teachers’ distribution has involved

the handling over of authority from the central government to the local

government as means of implementing regional autonomy. However, in Papua,

the shift from centralization to decentralization is not a simple task. Yulaelawaty

(2002) argued that the decentralization policy in Indonesia does not seem to be

successful. The main problem especially in the case of teachers’ distribution is

that the regional government only can hire and place teachers around its areas

(Hanson, 1998). That is why, if the availability of unemployed teachers seeking

job in its areas is less, the government will be able to alleviate the shortage of

teachers. This issue leads to the big gap between developed areas and

underdeveloped areas.. The shortage of teachers mainly encountered in

Highland areas (Mollet, 2007). As a result, in rural schools, where there is a



shortage of teachers, the responsibility of teaching large classes is occurred

(Guenther and Weible, 1983). For example, Samani (cited in Suara Merdeka,

2010) described the situation in highland area in Papua where in Yahukimo, one

teacher is responsible for teaching 73 students and in Bintang and Tolikara 70

students respectively. Consequently, the quality of teaching itself is sometimes

unable to be obtained because the responsibility and workload of teachers are

enormous. They do not have adequate time to get prepared for the teaching or if

they have, then it will be minimal since they should prepare the material for

several classes. In fact, in rural schools, some teachers are assigned to teach a

subject which is not their background.

The location choice of teachers

When the novice teachers decide to teach in rural schools, they solely consider

the availability of infrastructure provided in the school. The teachers are

unwilling to take up the post to the rural areas because the access to available

transportation, housing, and healthcare are minimal (Mollet, 2007). For example,

Due to the mountainous landscape of some rural areas in Mimika Regency, the

only way to access them is by Aircraft. As a result, many rural teachers are not in

place when even the schools are supposed to run, because the limited numbers

of flight insist them on being unable to be on duty everytime. In fact, Barr (2005)

argued that when teachers are chosen to relocate, the y will prefer the schools

with a better working environment and cooperative community around them,

and they will also consider the compensation.



Recommendation

The government should be concerned about the improvement of amenities by

allocating more funds to improve the infrastructure in their local areas including

transportation, accessible road, electricity, and comfortable housing. In this case,

the cooperation between local government and private company need to be

promoted to help improving the rural areas infrastructure (Reardon, Berdegué,

and Escobar, 2001). The availability of transportation and accessible road will

facilitate the load of amenities required for the school’ needs. The amenities

could be textbooks, computers, and class equipment to support teacher attaining

a high quality of teaching. Furthermore, the procurement of adequate housing

rural areas will enable teachers to adapt to the community and they will feel

more comfortable instead of feeling isolated.

Behrstock and Clifford (2010) pinpointed that the regional government and the

states policymakers should supervise the process of teacher recruitment and

placement. To ensure that the process is transparent and efficient, the officials of

National Education Ministry and State Employment Agency should be available

starting from the screening right through the final decision of the selection.

However, it may require more funds, such as fares, incentives and homestays, to

be allocated for the effectiveness of the supervision. Furthermore, during the

screening process, the local government should restrict the candidate according

to the mapping of the schools in which the shortage of teachers is discovered.



The government should revisit the decentralisation policy. In this case, the

teacher distribution should be taken over by the central government to allow

teacher recruitment from any parts of Indonesia. Also, the government should

also deregulate the policy in the selection process. For example, the pre- service

teacher must serve in the rural schools for a period of time as a prerequisite to

be able to be hired as government employee. Another thing to recommend is the

provision of compensation for rural teachers (Mollet, 2007). Attracting more

teachers to come to rural schools, the local government should create a policy

that enables teachers to get higher salary, additional incentive and future

development. Because rural schools are high-need and recognised to be more

challenging, there should be a different treatment for rural teachers so that they

are appropriately rewarded for the hard job they perform. Additionally,

Guenther and Weible (1983) argued that teaching rural areas requires unique

competencies to cope with more challenging and complex situation. Therefore,

The Papuan government should also delegate teachers in rural schools to teacher

training and even reward them with incentive to pursue more advanced degree

to enhance their skills.



Conclusion

The inequitable distribution of teachers is the key issue, which hampers the

attainment of high quality of education in Papua. The major problems causing

this are the misleading action occurring in the selection process, the weaknesses

of decentralization policy and the lack of teachers’ interest to serve in rural

schools. However, effective supervision may be undertaken to overcome the

intractable problems found in the recruitment and placement process. The shift

of distribution authority from local to central government may also reduce the

possibility of failures to take place in the distribution process. Also, the

improvement of amenities in rural areas and compensation for rural teachers

may also be effective solutions to attract teachers to serve high-need school in

rural areas.



References Lists

Barr, J. (2008). Teacher location choice and the distribution of quality: Evidence

from New York City. Contemporary Economic Policy , 23(4), 585-600.

Behrstock, E., & Clifford, M. (2010). Ensuring the equitable distribution of

teachers: Strategies for school, district, and state leaders. Washington, DC:

National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality. Retrieved October 20, 2013

From

http://www.gtlcenter.org/sites/default/files/docs/EnsuringEquitableDistributi

onTeachers.pdf

Guenther, J., & Weible, T. (1983). Preparing teachers for rural schools. Rural

Education, 1(2), 59-61.

Hanson, E. M. (1998). Strategies of educational decentralization: keyquestions and core issues. Journal of educational administration, 36 (2), 111-128.

Mollet, J. A. (2007). Educational investment in conflict areas of Indonesia: The

case of West Papua Province. International Education Journal , 8(2), 155-166.

Mollet, J. A. (2011). The dynamics of contemporary local-government policies

and economic development in West Papua. Development in Practice, 21(2), 232-

243.

Reardon, T., Berdegué, J., & Escobar, G. (2001). Rural nonfarm employmentand incomes in Latin America: overview and policy implications. Worlddevelopment , 29(3), 395-409.

Suryadarma, D. A., & Jones, G. (2013). Meeting the Education Challenge.

Education in Indonesia, 1-14.

U4. (2006). Corruption in education sector . Retrieved October 20, 2013, from

http://www.u4.no/publications/corruption-in-the-education-sector/

Wise, A. E., Darling-Hammond, L., Berry, B., & Berliner, D. C. (1987). Effective

teacher selection. Santa Monica, CA: Rand.

Yulaelawati, E. (2001, July). National education reform in Indonesia: milestones

and strategies for the reform process. In First International Forum on Education

Reform, Experiences in Selected Countries, organized by the National Education

Commission of Thailand (ONEC), in collaboration with international alliance ofeducation reform, in Bangkok .

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