Ministry of Village Asks For More Village Facilitators So Development Matches The Village SDGs

Minister of Villages, Development of Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration, Abdul Halim Iskandar (right)/Photo: Antara

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Villages, Development of Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration (Kemendes PDTT) will strengthen village assistants so that village development is in accordance with the Village SDGs.

"Village development will be carried out in accordance with the directions stated in the Village SDGs," said PDTT Mendes Abdul Halim Iskandar in a written statement received in Jakarta, Tuesday, April 5.

He conveyed that there were several steps to strengthen village facilitators, namely increasing the honorarium for Village Local Facilitators (PLD).

"As the spearhead at the village level, the salary received by PLD is still relatively low and needs to be increased again," he said while attending a Coordination Meeting for Strengthening Mentoring and Empowerment of Village Communities in the Provinces of West Java and Banten.

In addition, he added, to strengthen village assistants, it is also necessary to build a career ladder system.

"That's why I emphasize that you must recruit at the PLD level so that the career path of the TPP (professional assistants) is also clear and gives awards to outstanding assistants," he said, quoted by Antara.

In addition, the Minister of Villages also said that his ministry would seek to improve the quality of village assistant human resources, one of which was through the Village Recognition of Past Learning (RPL) program.

RPL Desa is an equalization of experience and service in the village academically for higher education qualifications which is followed by all village assistants, village heads, village officials, BUMDes managers, and all village activists.

He said the RPL Desa program that had been inaugurated was a scholarship from the Bojonegoro Regency Government at two universities, namely Yogyakarta State University and Surabaya State University. The number of participants was 1,067 undergraduate students with a single tuition scholarship (UKT) of IDR 22 million.

"We will try to persuade one of the district governments in West Java or Banten to provide scholarships for the village head, village officials and village assistants to be included in the village RPL program," he said.