Evaluating Teachers' Quality Improvement Policy in Indonesia

Abstract

Indonesia as one of the state members of UNESCO committed to achieve main goal of Education for All (EFA) UNESCO which is to improve education quality in the world. The education quality is inseparable from the teacher quality. Therefore the UNESCO and Indonesia put high concern to improve the teacher quality. Since Indonesian Government put high effort to achieve the UNESCO goal, the policies need to be evaluated in order to analyze whether those policies have met the criteria of EFA-UNESCO or not. A policy recommendation is presented if the policies are not effective to improve the teacher quality in Indonesia. Three research questions are answered in this research: (1) To what extent has the Indonesia government met the teacher quality of EFA? (2) What factors influence the criteria that have (not) met the EFA goal? (3) What role can the Ministry of National Education put to support the Indonesian government to achieve the EFA goal in more effective way?. In order to answer the research questions, three major methods were used: desk research, interviews, and policy analysis using causal relation diagram and multi criteria decision making. The desk research includes the literature studies of the related institutions reports such as UNESCO and Ministry of National Education. The interviews are executed via telephone to the related actors. The causal relation diagram is used to analyze the problem by capturing the teacher quality system and to identify what are the influencing factors. The policy analysis methods like system diagram, means end diagram, and actor network analysis is used to analyze what policy means can be proposed to solve the problem. Lastly, the proposed policy robustness is tested using a scenario analysis. Based on six criteria from Task Force on Teacher for EFA (TFTA) UNESCO, Indonesia is considered to fulfill the number of teacher needed, gender balance in teaching profession, and has good policies to improve teacher quality. However Indonesia still has to increase the student survival rate, lower the student repetition rate, and has to train and recruit many teachers. Indonesia is categorized as a country with the moderate level of achievement. When we look deeper to the Indonesia teacher condition and compare the assessment based on TFTE UNESCO criteria and Indonesian Government criteria, we can capture a different conclusion. According to UNESCO criteria, Indonesia fulfilled the teacher number needed but the unbalance teacher distribution leads to shortage number of teachers in many areas, especially the rural areas. The UNESCO also concludes that the gender balance in teaching profession has been achieved but we can see gender disparities since more male teachers are holding undergraduate degree. Moreover although the certification policy to improve the teacher quality is good in its implementation; a problem occurs after a teacher is certified. Many teachers cannot acquire their professional allowances because they cannot fulfill their obligation to teach 24 hours. There are two big problems which hamper the teacher quality improvement: (1) the unbalance teacher distribution between cities and rural areas and (2) the high teacher workload. The unbalance teacher number hampers teachers to fulfill their obligation to teach 24 hours per week. Meanwhile the high teacher workload limits teacher self-study time. The formulation of new teacher distribution management policy at province and national level is recommended to balance the number of teacher in the rural areas and the cities. When the district cannot fulfill their need of teacher, the province government helps to manage the teacher movement from one district to other district within the province; and when the province cannot fulfill the need of teacher, the Ministry facilitates the teacher movement from one province to other province. Meanwhile comprehensive teaching method development is recommended to reduce the teacher workload and to increase their quality. This comprehensive teaching method includes the teacher guidebook, student book, evaluation book and innovative teaching tools.