JAKARTA - Deputy Secretary General of the Indonesian Teachers Association (PGRI), Wijaya, revealed that his party proposed to the government to form a National Teacher Special Agency.
"Indonesia is currently facing a real and structural teacher crisis. Therefore, the existence of the National Special Teacher Agency is important and urgent," he said in a written statement, Sunday, February 1.
He explained that data from the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (Kemendikdasmen) showed that Indonesia was short of more than 1.3 million teachers, especially due to the wave of retirement that was not balanced by rapid and planned recruitment, one of which was due to the moratorium on teacher appointments.
Teacher vacancies in public schools, even often left for months to years, as if the absence of teachers is not a serious problem for the right of students to get learning experience.
"The irony is that the country seems to be used to this emergency situation. Teachers are managed by many institutions, but no one is fully responsible," said Wijaya.
He said, it is no longer a secret that currently the affairs of teachers are scattered in many hands, ministries, technical institutions, local governments, to staffing agencies. At the central level, the management of teachers is only handled at the level of the directorate general of GTK alias Teacher Education Staff.
In the regions, decisions are often hostage to fiscal constraints and bureaucratic tug-of-war. As a result, no single institution is truly fully responsible for the fate of national teachers from upstream to downstream, which indeed needs to be improved.
The impact is very real, retired teachers are not immediately replaced, schools fill the gaps with honorarium teachers with minimal salaries, teachers' careers are uncertain and often discriminatory, teachers' legal protection is weak, criminalization is easy to happen.
In this condition, continued Wijaya, it is normal if the profession of teachers is no longer attractive to the younger generation. The country needs qualified teachers, but it fails to create a system that honors, blesses and protects the profession of teachers.
"The proposal of the PB PGRI regarding the establishment of the Special Teacher Agency is actually not an excessive demand, but a rational answer to the systemic failure that has lasted for a long time. So far, the state has too much confidence that the teacher problem can be solved with partial regulations and sectoral policies. The facts on the ground prove the opposite," he said.
He emphasized that the special body of teachers was needed because the policy of teachers was too fragmented and needed one national command. In addition, teacher data is not integrated between K/L, making planning always miss the real needs. In fact, there is a basic data of education (Dapodik) which has a complete database about teachers (place of duty, academic qualifications, qualifications of teaching certificates), the protection of the profession of teachers is almost not systematic, so teachers work in fear.
"The presence of Permendikdasmen No. 4 of 2026 always leaves a void of implementation in the field. Not to mention the management of career and distribution of teachers is unfair, especially for honorers and 3T areas. Without a strong national-level special institution, education reform will only revolve on the surface," concluded Wijaya.
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