Teacher Education in Indonesia

To address the poor performance of Indonesian students on international academic tests pre-2003, the Government of Indonesia (GoI) enacted the Teacher Law in 2005 aimed at providing a much-needed incentive for teachers to improve their qualifications and professional skills. Essentially, the teacher law mandates a comprehensive package of reforms and applies them uniformly to the whole teaching service.

Teachers are required to meet two conditions. First, all teachers are required to have a minimum qualification of at least four years of post-secondary education or a S1 degree (equivalent to a bachelor’s degree). Second, having achieved the academic qualification, inservice teachers must pass a portfolio test. Pre-service teachers must take one or two semesters of professional training and pass a certification exam. Certified teachers receive a professional allowance that doubles their salary, and certified teachers who are assigned to remote areas receive a special allowance which is also equal to their base salary.

The Teacher Law is an ambitious effort to upgrade the quality of Indonesian teachers and provides a type of quality control for students about to become practicing teachers (pre-service training) or for upgrading (in-service training) under-qualified teachers. Currently, about 70 percent of Indonesian teachers are not qualified at the S1 level.

Teacher training in Indonesia occurs through both pre-service and in-service activities, as it does in most countries. Pre-service takes place mainly through two major options. The first one is attendance at teacher training colleges (TTC). Indonesia has 268 of these colleges that offer the S1 degree. Twenty-three TTCs offer distance education under the multi-mode system. Indonesia has at least one public training college in each province that offers a diploma (D1 or D2), and S1 degree to teachers. Universities, the second option, also participate in teacher preparation through their education departments and the degree attained by students is also an S1 degree. This degree satisfies one of the prerequisites for teacher certification and the larger salary under the Teacher Law of 2005. All higher education institutions (HEI) that produce teachers are collectively called Lembaga Pendidikan Tenaga Kependidikan (LPTK).

The delivery of in-service teacher training is overseen by the Directorate General for Teacher and Education Personnel Quality Improvement (PMPTK) which tracks research on teacher quality for primary and secondary levels. The PMPTK also manages two important offices that support teachers, the LPMP (Education Quality Assurance Councils) and the P4TKs (Centers for Teacher and Education Personnel Development and Empowerment). Thirty LPMPs, one in each of 30 provinces, are responsible for provincial in-service teacher training. There are twelve P4TKs, located mainly on Java, with each one a national office of specialized subject matter expertise where selected teachers (master/key trainers) are trained to disseminate content to other teachers in their provinces or districts. The missing ingredient appears to be an energetic and reliable training program for active learning pedagogy.

The Kelompok Kerja Guru (KKG) and the Musyawarah Guru Mata Pelajaran (MGMP) are teacher professional development networks that exist at local levels to assist teachers with pedagogy. Also known as clusters or gugus, these networks have been delivering teacher improvements for the last 30 years. They are supported by the P4TKs and LPMPs. The KKG works with primary school teachers, while the MGMP serves units of single subject area teachers at the junior secondary and secondary schools. Though they are potentially major forces for teaching reform, in reality they seem to be limited more to sharing lesson plans for various topics.

Distance learning is also an in-service teacher training option; the Open University (UT) offers accredited courses that are print-based as well as on internet. An additional 92 universities now have the authority to provide on campus in-service training to teachers throughout Indonesia.

There is also the Hybrid Learning for Indonesian Teachers program (HYLITE), an ICT-based distance learning for Indonesian teacher education, launched by the Ministry of National Education's (MONE Directorate General of PMPTK and Directorate General of Higher Education (DGHE) in January 2007. HYLITE is an in-service teacher training program especially designed to improve the qualifications of primary school teachers from D2 to S1 level, through open and distance learning mode (the multi-mode system). Currently offered by 23 universities, the HYLITE Program provides access to lifelong learning for primary school teachers in all areas in Indonesia.

This extract is from the report "Teacher Education and Professional Development in Indonesia: A Gap Analysis" (August 2009) produced for USAID/Indonesia under Task Order 26 of the Global Evaluation and Monitoring (GEM II) BPA, EDH-E-25-08-00003-00. It was prepared by the Aguirre Division of JBS International, Inc. Its authors are David Evans, Sean Tate, Richard Navarro, and Martina Nicolls.

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