When 'Certified' Teacher Doesn't Mean 'Qualified' Teachings

By Irfan Nugroho
Being a teacher in Indonesia did not guarantee somebody for save financial needs in the past. But the current progress on Indonesian education gets improved fast and is a good news for those grappling with it.

Therefore, being a teacher is no longer a nightmare, but a dream for so many Indonesian youths who want to get ‘save financial needs’ through teaching.

It is because those ‘certified teachers’ would get higher salary from the government that has boosted up the National Budget for Education Sector – up to 20 per cent from total National Budget – since 2008.

To those who have been familiar in watching news on Indonesian education, they would see that there are so many Indonesian teachers are now enrolling themselves for certification.

This can be a good news for students – with hope that students would get more quality education – but sometimes, still there are some ‘fraud’ teachers who want to have the mere higher salary with no quality improvement at all.

Such an assessment came out as the current research finding of Indonesia’s PGRI (Teacher’s Association of the Republic of Indonesia) disclosed a fact that ‘certified teachers’ cannot produce the more qualified teacher.

Likewise, the above assessment was also based on my self-experience as a non-government-paid English teacher at a certain SMP (Junior High School) in Central Java, Indonesia.

The story began when I came to the school for the first time. I tried to asses their English ability through a placement test given to the third grade students, second grade students, and first grade students.

Perhaps, I can apologize to any dissatisfying results coming out of the first and second grades students, but how if the same dissatisfying results also emerged from those students at the third grade.

They don’t even understand how they must apply “simple present tense” on an assignment I have given to them later. Then one big question spurred out, “What have those teachers taught to these kids?”

This problem takes my serious concern as the third grade students would face the National Examination only in less than one year.

It means that their fate of being three-year students at the school will be decided only in three days.

If they mark less than ‘five’ (of range one to 10 of marking) at the National Examination, they would fail at all, and not able to succeed in further higher education – SMA (Senior High School).

One of the onsets for the above problem slightly appeared when the school where I am teaching at was being ‘monitored’ and ‘supervised’ by a team consisting of two supervisors from the Department of Education.

The supervision is a means of quality control from the Department of Education to those teachers who have passed the certification stage.

As well, it means that those ‘certified teachers’ would be asked to take another certification process if they fail to make any good impression in front of the supervisors.

That is why; four days before the supervision and monitoring, the headmaster asked those teachers who have ‘passed’ the certification process to make some unusual and extraordinary teaching materials, special for that day of supervision.

Some ‘certified teachers’ then arranged teaching materials that are far more attractive than usual. Some of them even browsed for the internet; in fact, they rarely did it before.

What a good mark, the school where I am working at, got a good mark over the supervision. All ‘certified’ teachers have passed the supervision, and doesn’t need to take another certification anymore.

From the above observation, I would conclude that the research finding of Indonesia’s PGRI does match to the real fact in the fields.

My personal experience also supports an argumentation saying that ‘certified teachers doesn’t guarantee for qualified teachings.’

Now, there is a need to raise awareness amongst those certified teachers that the higher salary paid to them is aimed at stimulating them to improve their quality of teachings.

That does not only mean for getting ‘save financial needs,’ but there more duties and responsibilities are waiting for them.

In the other words, they have had their rights but they have not made any advanced progress following the ‘stimulus’ taking the form of ‘higher salary.’

Once again, they should now realize that there are more duties and responsibilities over higher salary and title ‘certified’ they have received.