National

policy on teacher development in relation to autonomous education university

Satryo Soemantri Brodjonegoro Introduction The success of education or learning process relies very much on the role of quality teachers. Teachers are the product of education university which has the mandate from the government cq ministry of education and culture. There is also a law on teacher and lecturer which describes and states the profile and status of teachers and lecturers. Despite the past achievements in developing national school system including teacher improvement policy, the overall school education process has not significantly progressed. Therefore education quality slowly improves while government budget has been channeled to schools or local government office. The slow improvement or progress is indicated by the fact that internationally Indonesia is ranked low and lower from time to time. Educational disparity among regions is quite high due to the difference in level of development experienced by each region. Indonesia is a diverse country therefore this disparity could not be avoided, and what government could do then is to minimize it. Current policy Higher education has a critical role of producing qualified teachers for basic and secondary education. Currently both levels of pre-service training programs are conducted utilizing the concurrent model, however, there is no justification for overly restrictive in this respect. The viability of the consecutive model that requires prospective teachers to possess S1 degrees in relevant disciplines before admission has never been explored. Such program might offer an additional one-year training in professional teacher education, that culminates in the awarding of appropriate teaching certificates for certain subject matters, approximately equivalent to foreign BA/BSc or Dipl.Ed. Furthermore, in view of the wide diversity found throughout the Indonesian archipelago especially with respect to socio-economic conditions, the provision of educational service could not be fully subject to raw market forces. Therefore, coordination with relevant agencies responsible for the recruitment and deployment of teachers particularly for school level would be a prerequisite. [1] Indonesia is a highly pluralistic country and diverse nation, reflected by its national credo: Bhinneka Tunggal Ika or Unity in Diversity. With dozens of existing ethnic and several hundreds of different local dialects, the country might only be comparable with Europe in terms of diversity. The diversity becomes more visible by considering the disparity in economic, social, technological infrastructures and natural resources. In highly pluralistic country, a universal policy applied to every institution is not suitable. Although uniformity is sometimes seen as the best short-term solution for urgent problems requiring 1

quick decisions, it does not fit for a long-term solution in a heterogeneous system. Inability to centrally manage a large and complex system could also be illustrated in proliferation of various form of malpractice such as diploma mills, the emergence of new types of ineligible and unqualified providers, and failure to be accountable in the execution of educational process, etc. [1] Existing condition Table 1 Numbers of Researchers per Million Population, Selected Countries
Country Finland Iceland Singapore Denmark Japan Norway Sweden Luxembourg USA Republic of Korea Researchers per million inhabitants latest available year 7,707 7,315 6,088 5,670 5,573 5,468 5,239 4,748 4,663 4,627

Malaysia Mexico Uruguay Thailand Monaco Sudan Brunei Darussalam Senegal Guinea Indonesia 372 353 346 311 308 290 281 276 253 205

Source: ChartsBin, http://cdn3.chartsbin.com.

Table 1 compares the numbers of researchers by country per million of population. Indonesia ranks number 77 in the world. The low ranking of Indonesia is commensurate with the low investment, and can be expected to rise when additional resources create incentives for students and expatriates. We should note that tables such as this tend to understate the progress of countries like Indonesia. The Western nations at the top of the chart have aging populations dominated by mature, working adults. In developing countries, often more than a third of the population is under working age. Children do not do research, and the effectiveness of the scientific community is not measured by its percentage of the population. That measure entails a race with population growth that will not be won in the short term. Science education What effect does the low input and output of the scientific community have on Indonesias science students? Many factors affect students performance, such as school funding, class size, and teachers capabilities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Table 2 shows the percentage of science students at various proficiency levels in most countries. Indonesia is fifth from the bottom of the list. Table 2 Proficiency of Students at Each Proficiency Level in Science, by Country
Below level 1 Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5 Level 6

Finland Canada Korea Japan Thailand Indonesia Tunisia

0.5 2.2 2.5 3.2 12.6 20.3 27.7

3.6 7.8 8.7 8.9 33.5 41.3 35.1

13.6 19.1 21.2 18.5 33.2 27.5 25.0

29.1 28.8 31.8 27.5 16.3 9.5 10.2

32.2 27.7 25.5 27.0 4.0 1.4 1.9

17.0 12.0 9.2 12.4 0.4 0.0 0.1

3.9 2.4 1.1 2.6 0.0 0.0 0.0

Source: OECD PISA 2006 database. Note: Countries are ranked in descending order of percentage of students at levels 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. These data are summarized by OECD in table 3, which ranks countries on a so-called science scale. Indonesia is tied for 50th place, albeit with three large Latin American countries, and the United States is 24th. The United States at least benefits from a large migration of some of the worlds best students who cometo study at U.S. universities, and many of them remain. The data in tables 2 and 3 are hard to evaluate because they deal with averages over the student body. Innovators are not identified by averages, and science as a discipline is led and guided by the best and the brightest. More telling might be Indonesias good showing in competitive science competitions. The talent is there, as it certainly is in Argentina and Brazil, which tie with Indonesia on the science scale. 3

What is needed is a rational system for producing and supporting scientists and engineers in Indonesia, and that requires raising the quality of science and engineering education to international standards and increasing the enrollment of students in these fields. [2] Table 3 Ranking on the Science Scale, Selected Countries
Country Finland Hong Kong SAR, China Canada Japan Korea, Rep. Thailand Indonesia Brazil Science score 56.3 54.2 53.4 53.1 52.2 42.1 39.3 39.0

Source:OECD. Future challenges Based on the above conditions it is clear that science education is necessary to be improved so that more qualified scientists will be provided. With the increased pool of talented scientists, Indonesia should be able to compete internationally and become much more competitive. In order to improve science education, the role of teacher will be the central issue where scientific competence is necessary to be mastered by teachers and effective learning process is mandatory to be implemented in the classroom. There should be a comprehensive effort among the key factors of school education improvement such as teacher quality, effective curriculum, appropriate learning process, adequate infrastructure, proper assessment methodology, etc. It is not only on science education, however, the overall school education has to be improved significantly otherwise Indonesia will not have the competitive human resource. Developed nations rely a lot on their competitive human resources, they survive and advance despite the limited natural resources. The product of basic education and secondary education will be the intake of higher education, the quality of higher education will depend on the quality of basic and secondary education. It seems like a vicious circle since the intake quality of higher education depends on qualified teachers who are educated and produced by higher education, namely education university. 4

Institutional reform The provision of teachers depends on the quality and capacity of education university. Therefore it is necessary to reform the university so that they become the center of excellence for educating and preparing teachers. The reform should touch the heart of the problem i.e. university governance, and the ultimate goal of the reform is to convert the existing education university into autonomous education university. Decentralizing authority and providing more autonomy to institutions is considered to be the best suited approach in managing such a highly complex higher education system. With autonomy, responsibility and accountability will be shifted to institutions. Providing autonomy and demanding accountability, however, needs a comprehensive and consistent policy. Each relevant aspect has to be adjusted following policy shift, i.e. funding policy, personnel policy, governance, and quality assurance system. It is difficult to deny that excellence requires adequate resources. Due to relatively existing low level of public funding for higher education, it is necessary to aggressively promote and convince the concerned parties on the importance of greater public funding to support higher education. In return, the system as well as institutional wide should continuously improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its use. One way to approach the quality issue is to encourage institutions to put emphasis on producing quality human resources rather than merely on increasing quantity. Expansion should only be justifiable if there is a clear demand from the market workforce. Closing remarks Reformed national policy in teacher development process is necessary otherwise Indonesia will be very much left behind its neighbors and partners.A new policy on teacher preparation and deployment is needed to fulfill the challenges mentioned in the above paragraphs. Qualified teachers will be provided by autonomous education university and professional teachers will be certified through a new model of teacher training i.e. consecutive model beyond S1 degree in subject matter. This model will be compatible with international teacher certification or licensing process. It is expected that Indonesian education quality will be comparable internationally and will exceed the bench mark platform set by UNESCO and OECD. References 1. Higher Education Long Term Strategy 2003 2010, Directorate General of Higher Education, Ministry of National Education, April 2003. 2. Brodjonegoro, S.S, and Greene, M.P., Creating an Indonesian Science Fund, World Bank Report, July 2012