The Quality Of Indonesian Education Is Still Supported, DPR: Prabowo Needs To Be Selective In Choosing The Minister Of Education And Culture

Illustration of schoolchildren (ANTARA)

JAKARTA - The Indonesian House of Representatives considers the President-elect, Prabowo Subianto, to be selective in choosing the Minister of Education and Culture (Mendikbud) for his government cabinet. This is because the quality of Indonesian education is still experiencing a lot of inequality.

"We know that there is a lot of homework in the education sector, many problems are still unresolved. It is natural that many people think that the elected president needs to be very selective in choosing the Minister of Education and Culture in his Cabinet," said Member of the Indonesian Parliament, Andreas Hugo Pareira, Wednesday, October 9.

Andreas, who in the previous DPR period served in Commission X with a work scope in the education sector, detailed a number of things that were still a problem. First, regarding teachers and infrastructure which causes a low quality of education services.

"Meanwhile, last year the education budget was not maximally absorbed. Not to mention the curriculum which is still in a transition period and is hampered by the two years of the pandemic," he said.

Andreas also mentioned the process of accepting New Students (PPDB), which every year causes problems, so that the problem of teacher shortages has not yet been resolved. In fact, according to him, the inequality of the quality of education is partly due to the quality of teaching staff.

"We know that the affairs of teaching staff that are still lacking in our education world until now have not found the right formulation to overcome it so that it has an impact on the inequality of the quality of education in the country," Andreas explained.

The PDIP legislator also mentioned the problem of teacher shortages in the formal education sector which is further exacerbated by the lack of quality teachers.

"The problem of the low quality of national education is one of the reasons why the inequality of teacher certification and the low results of teacher competency tests show that the Government needs to immediately take strategic steps to improve the quality of education," he explained.

Data from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology (Kemendikbudristek) reveals that there are 1.6 million teachers who have not been certified, so it is considered that there are still inequality in the quality of teachers. As for the national education ecosystem covering 60 million students, there are more than 4 million educators spread across 400 thousand schools.

Looking at the data, Andreas asked the Government to accelerate the certification process to 1.6 million teachers. Teachers, he said, can participate in the training program intensively before getting certification.

"Certification is not only seen as a formality, but must be accompanied by stricter competency measurements, ensuring teachers have the necessary skills," Andreas explained.

The legislator from the NTT I electoral district added that teacher certification is one of the steps to overcome inequality in the quality of national education. The goal of the teacher certification program, said Andreas, is to improve the quality of teaching and ensure that teachers have met the competency standards set by the Government.

"If the teacher has good quality, it will also provide good teaching performance for our children as the next generation of the nation," he said.

Until now, added Andreas, the highest percentage of certified teachers is at the junior high school (SMP) level of 48.44 percent, then at the elementary school (SD) level it is 45.77 percent. Meanwhile, the smallest percentage is at the vocational high school level (SMK) which is only 28.49 percent.

Thus, according to Andreas, there needs to be continuous training for teachers. This is because the competency results that show 60 percent of teachers need an improvement in skills.

Andreas assessed that the Government could strengthen Continuous Professional Development (CPD), through training modules relevant to changes in the curriculum and modern education technology.

"The use of technology, such as online learning, can be a solution to reach teachers in remote areas. But previously the Government had to ensure that internet access had been fulfilled in all remote areas," Andreas concluded.