After Honorary Teachers, Small Salaries And The Threat Of Massive Layoffs

Illustration - The fate of honorary teachers is increasingly uncertain after being haunted by the threat of dismissal. (ANTARA)

JAKARTA The 2024/2025 academic year has just started, but the world of education has been shocked again by the news of the dismissal of hundreds of honorary teachers in Jakarta. Indonesia is predicted to experience a shortage of teachers if this dismissal continues.

A total of 107 honorary teachers in Jakarta reported that their contracts were terminated unilaterally through a cleaning system. The Head of the Advocacy Division of the Education and Teacher Association (P2G) Iman Zanatul Haeri said honorary teachers were surprised by the news of this dismissal.

On July 5, 2024, or in the first week of entering public schools for the new school year 2024/2025 in DK Jakarta, honorary teachers received a horror message. Namely that since the first day they entered it became the last day they were in school. In addition, the principal sent a Professor Honorary Clearing form to honorary teachers so that they would fill it out, "said Iman, in a statement received by VOI.

"Denishshock, some have taught for six years or more. They are actually waiting for the 2024 PPPK selection, but if they are dismissed like this, their opportunity to join PPPK will also be lost," he added.

Regarding the news of the dismissal of hundreds of teachers, the Acting Head of the Jakarta Provincial Education Office, Budi Awaluddin, spoke up. He emphasized that the Jakarta Province had warned schools not to accept honorary teachers since 2017.

"We have informed you long ago, yes, from 2017 and even from 2022 we have informed you not to appoint honorary teachers," said Budi Awaluddin, quoting Antara.

The appointment of honorary teachers, said Budi, is not in accordance with Law Number 20 of 2023 concerning State Civil Apparatus (ASN), namely the status of honorary teachers must no longer exist until December 2024.

Budi Awaluddin added that honorary teachers who were affected by the nuclearing or dismissed policy were those who were appointed by school principals without appropriate rules.

"The condition is that these honorary teachers are appointed by the principal, paid for with BOS funds (School Operational Assistance) without a clear selection," he continued.

The issue of honorary teachers has long occurred in Indonesia. Before the problem of clearing honorary teachers in Jakarta emerged, the Institute for Democracy and Credit Studies (IDEAS) and GREAT Edunesia Dompet Dhuafa conducted a survey of 403 teachers in 25 provinces in Indonesia regarding the wages they got.

The survey results showed that 74 percent of respondents had salaries below Rp. 2 million and some of them were below Rp. 500 thousand. This means that it can be said that their salaries are below the lowest Regency-City Minimum Wage (UMK) in 2024.

The survey was conducted on 123 ASN teachers, 118 foundation teachers, 117 honorary teachers or contracts and 45 PPPK teachers. The respondents came from Java Island as many as 291 people and 112 from outside Java.

However, even though the honorarium or salary received is very small, in fact the number of honorary teachers in Indonesia reaches hundreds of thousands. According to the records of the Directorate General of Teachers and Education Personnel (GTK) of the Ministry of Education and Culture, Nunuk Suryani, there were 529,770 teachers with honorary status in public schools until last year.

In a joint working meeting with Commission X DPR RI on May 24, 2023, Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of Indonesia (Mendikbudristek) Nadiem Makarim explained things that caused honorary teachers to continue.

First, because of urgent needs from schools. For example, there are teachers who move, stop, retire, or die, but the school does not immediately get a replacement because the recruitment of ASN teachers has been carried out centrally and only once a year. This is what makes schools inevitably recruit honorary teachers.

"So schools cannot replace (the teacher) because they have to wait for the recruitment of ASN teachers centrally," said Nadiem.

The second reason relates to the recruitment of ASN teachers who are carried out centrally because there are concerns that the number of teachers and their competencies do not meet their needs.

The centrally recruiting ASN teachers also resulted in discrepancies with the needs of teachers in the regions.

Back to the issue of the dismissal of honorary teachers in Jakarta. What is happening in Jakarta today, according to Iman, has also occurred in a number of areas, although with different patterns. Previously, a similar report also occurred in other areas such as Garut, West Java.

P2G received complaints regarding the presence of government employee teachers with Work Agreements (PPPK) to schools that take hours to teach honorary teachers. That way, honorary teachers no longer have teaching hours.

"In May to July we continued to record, finally we managed to collect around 466 cases of honorary teachers at schools whose hours were shifted to zero. For honorary teachers, teaching hours are their lives," said Iman at a press conference at the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH) office, which was broadcast online, Wednesday (17/7/2924).

The expulsion of honorary teachers also occurred in North Lampung, which did not open the selection of PPPK teachers. Even though the selection of PPPK is a way for honorary teachers to become ASN teachers.

"Indirectly, the careers of honorary teachers were stopped, expelled from school. On the other hand, they were also not given the opportunity to compete, to participate in the PPPK selection. So, we think this is very unfair," Iman explained.

Furthermore, he said this problem was proof that teacher governance in Indonesia was still not good.

"If it is possible to manage teachership in Indonesia, it is still a temporary event. We can call this honorary writer incident in DKI Jakarta an iceberg phenomenon," said Iman.

As a result of the cleaning clearness policy, Budi Awaluddin said there were around 4,000 honorary teachers who were affected. This means that the thousands of teachers will lose their jobs.

Iman is worried that the current policy of managing honorary teachers will result in Indonesia experiencing a national teacher deficit. Iman emphasized that according to 2024, Indonesia needed 1.3 million teachers. However, the number of teachers filtered through the selection of PPPK Teachers this year is only 55 percent of the needs.

If there is a shortage of teachers, there is a possibility of a marketing loss phenomenon as experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. This phenomenon causes students to lack or even skills and skills.

"The policy of cleaning in DKI Jakarta by expelling honorary teachers throughout Indonesia, we will experience learning loss again because of wrong policies," said Iman asserted.