Andika Tampubolon chose to dedicate himself as a teacher in the interior of Mamberamo Raya regency, Papua.
By
FABIO MARIA LOPES COSTA
·5 minutes read
KOMPAS/FABIO M LOPES COSTA
Andika Tampubolon
After graduating from Gadjah Mada University in 2016, Andika Tampubolon sought no other jobs in big cities. He chose to dedicate himself as a teacher in the interior of Mamberamo Raya regency, Papua.
Since 5 September 2017, Andika has been teaching in the State Primary School (SD) of Fuau village in Mamberamo Hulu district. It takes around 40 minutes to go by small plane from Jayapura, the capital of Papua, to Fuau.
From Dabra, the capital of Mamberamo Hulu district, it takes nine hours on a motorboat to get to Fuau village.
Andika executes his duty there as a volunteer teacher of the Trevor Johnson Ministry, which is focused on educational, health and religious activities in the interior region of Papua. This institute was set up by church Minister Trevor Johnson from the U.S. At present, 80 students are studying in SD Fuau. They are children of families of farmers and fishermen.
Andika lives in a house with a fellow teacher, a nurse at the Fuau auxiliary community health center and two students. The house is about 500 meters from SD Fuau. It takes some 15 minutes to cover the distance on foot. He and the other teachers start working exactly at 07.30 East Indonesia Time (WIT) and finish it at 14.00 WIT.
SD Fuau only has two classrooms and there are no bathrooms. Teachers have to go home if they want to use toilets. Meanwhile, some students are forced to defecate and urinate in the river.
The learning activity of each of the classes in SD Fuau only lasts for two hours because the classrooms have to be used in shifts. Besides, the number of teachers is indeed limited. Students of class I and class II learn from 07.30 to 10.00, class III and class IV from 10.00 to 12.00, and class V and class VI from 12.00 to 14.00.
Kompas
Andika Tampubolon with his students.
Andika has taught students of classes I, IV and VI in the last 4.5 years. His students have high spirit and enthusiasm for learning. “When I reach the school, all students are already in the classroom. They greet me zealously and are ready to get new lessons,” said Andika when visited in Jayapura in early June.
After the school activity is over, Andika and one of his colleagues, Nia Lumban Tobing, give private lessons in reading, arithmetic, Indonesian and natural science from 16.00 to 18.00.
Now a total of 53 students of Andika have graduated from SD Fuau in the period from 2017 to 2021. They have continued their junior high school study in Dabra and Jayapura.
Promise
Andika felt his inner call to become a teacher in the interior of Papua when he followed field study service (KKL) in Wafor village, Supiori regency, in the middle of 2014. During the KKL, Andika served as a teacher in one of the primary schools in Wafor and taught class VI students. He was very sad to notice the educational condition in Wafor.
“I was about to cry when I observed the children. Many of them were unable to read and do arithmetic yet although they had entered class VI,” he related.
Andika thus promised to himself to return to the land of Papua to give contribution as a teacher. His aim was to assist children in remote parts of Papua in order to secure a better future.
The opportunity came when the Trevor Johnson Ministry offered vacancies for teachers in Fuau village in early 2017. Andika got the information from social media. The man born in Batam enrolled and joined several tests as well as interviews for some months. Finally, Trevor Johnson decided that Andika qualified as a teacher in Fuau.
I was about to cry when I observed the children.
“He (Trevor) accompanied me on the trip to Jayapura. Later, Yulianus Wau, a community figure, took me from Jayapura to Fuau in a Yajasi airline company’s flight,” said the 28-year-old man.
ARSIP TREVOR JOHNSON MINISTRY
Andika Tampubolon while teaching her students at SD Negeri Fuau, Mamberamo Raya Regency, Papua.
On arrival in Fuau, the local community warmly welcomed Andika. The villagers had for years been waiting for a teacher who could be assigned to SD Fuau on a routine basis. The school actually had two local teachers, but they had been less actively in charge over the past several years.
“When I was for the first time in Fuau, I found its educational condition similar to that in Supiori. Many children could not yet read and do arithmetic despite their age of above 10,” noted Andika.
Change
Many constraints are faced by teachers and students in Fuau in the pursuit of knowledge in school. The main constraint is the minimum availability of infrastructure. There’s no telecommunication or electricity service in Fuau. In conducting school tests, for instance, teachers have to write questions on paper sheets and distribute them to students.
The school building is also damaged and there are no bathroom and library facilities. “In fact, with the special autonomy fund, the children can have a school with more appropriate facilities,” he said.
He suggested that regional and central government should be sensitive to the educational condition in the interior of Papua such as that in Fuau. It’s because children in the remote areas are highly enthusiastic about learning but they still get no access to adequate facilities and infrastructure.
“I’m always hoping and optimistic that there will be a change in the world of education in Fuau,” added Andika.
Andika Tampubolon
Born: Batam, Riau Archipelago, 20 January 1993
Education: First degree in Biology, Gadjah Mada University
Occupation: Teacher in State Primary School of Fuau village, Mamberamo Raya regency, Papua
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