Moral Dilemma of Educators in Indonesia
Improving the quality of education must first begin with guaranteeing the welfare of educators. Because in the hands of the educators, the quality of education is determined.
Education, as a social activity, is linked to realms other than education itself, ranging from cultural and economic to political matters.
Therefore, talks about education will always involve talks about the context of culture, economy and politics as external factors that influence, whether directly or not, the educational process itself. Teacher-student relations, for example, will be more or less influenced by the cultural context where the education takes place.
The economic factor, for example, will determine the condition of physical infrastructure that directly supports how the education process is implemented. Likewise, politics. National education, both organized by state or private schools/campuses, is regulated by laws whose formulation are linked to political context.
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Therefore, discussing education must also involve talks about education politics. This education politics includes many issues in education, ranging from the influence of ideology on the curriculum to political policies related to the appointment and payroll of teachers/lecturers (educators).
I will highlight how political policies related to the welfare of educators gives rise to a moral dilemma for them so that we need to urge the policymakers to have a strong political will to further guarantee the welfare of educators.
Policy gap
Educators are one of the most important aspects of education. Without competent and adequate educators, even though complete infrastructure and facilities are available, education will not run as it should. Therefore, when paying attention to education, one must first pay attention to the quality of educators.
That was what Emperor Hirohito did in Japan when Nagasaki-Hiroshima was destroyed by an atomic bomb. He noticed how many educators were left and with that capital he was sure Nagasaki-Hiroshima could rise again and triumph.
It is common knowledge that the salaries of educators, both teachers and lecturers, are far below the salaries of professional employees who work in the non-education sector.
However, unfortunately, it seems it has never been a major concern for political leaders in Indonesia.
It is common knowledge that the salaries of educators, both teachers and lecturers, are far below the salaries of professional employees who work in the non-education sector. This causes many quality human resources to be reluctant to become educators in this country. If it were not for the strong call of the soul of teachers/lecturers to become educators, maybe the number of educators in this country would not be able to meet an adequate ratio to the number of students.
That, as written by Darmaningtyas (Kompas, 21/12/2022), is exacerbated by the decline in the recruitment of teachers/lecturers with the civil servant (PNS) status. The decline, according to Darmaningtyas, is an educational disaster, because it makes less people interested in becoming educators.
Now the needs of teachers/lecturers are not met by the appointment of PNS teachers/ lecturers, but through the Government Employee Scheme with a Work Agreement (PPPK). In guarantees of welfare and social status, this PPPK is classified as a civil servant, so many quality human resources who should educate the nation's generations prefer to become professionals in various noneducational sectors that offer more promising welfare.
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The same problem occurs in state universities with the status of state universities with legal entity (PTN-BH). The policy to make universities legal entities is actually a policy leading to liberalization of higher education.
Higher education, as a higher education organizer, by becoming a legal entity, is separated just like that by the government into the market mechanism. It is given the authority to appoint its own lecturers, who then have a status of non-PNS permanent lecturers.
As employees in private institutions in general, the non-PNS permanent lecturers are also vulnerable to termination of employment (PHK) unilaterally. Thus, many quality human resources then make considerations: equally vulnerable to unilateral layoffs, it is better to work in the noneducational sector, with a salary leading to greater prosperity.
Moral dilemma
In such a context, people who choose to work as educators in the end consist of only two possibilities. First, quality human resources who have a strong soul calling to become educators. Or, secondly, human resources who are not qualified, that lose or do not want to compete to get work in the noneducational sector.
Quality human resources who have a strong soul calling to become educators are certainly not many.
While the number is few, when they have become educators with mediocre salaries, these quality human resources will be faced with the fact that they need living expenses that can exceed their salary as educators.
At this point they will be faced with a moral dilemma, which for some people will be very tiring mentally. They will be confused between carrying out their duties as educators as well as possible or carrying out their duties as educators as much as they can while dividing their time and attention by efforts to meet the needs of life.
Choosing the first, for most educators, means ignoring the responsibility to make a living for the family. However, choosing the second means ignoring the responsibility to educate the nation's young generations as well as possible.
Therefore, this is a very complicated moral dilemma for an educator with a mediocre salary. Not surprisingly, it is not uncommon for us to see some educators, whether teachers or lecturers, look for side jobs, either by doing business or working for the noneducation sector.
In universities, for example, we can see several lecturers who are looking for project opportunities here and there, looking for the possibility of being appointed as commissioners in SOEs or company consultants, so that the time needed to teach and research is divided.
Therefore, the quality of teaching and research of some of the lecturers become unfavourable. It is not difficult for us to find lecturers whose teaching materials have not been updated for years.
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Again, in this context, students are the victims, because they have paid dearly, but receive a quality of teaching far from ideal. Some people might see the low quality of teaching and research lecturers in tertiary institutions as personal problems with related lecturers who have low competencies.
However, if we look at it, the problem is actually a structural problem that conditions many lecturers to be divided in attention and time, not to mention the problem of the large workload of the lecturers. In addition to being given the task of teaching many lectures, lecturers in Indonesia are also burdened with administrative and managerial jobs that further hamper their self-development academically.
Without a guarantee of welfare, educators will forever be faced with a moral dilemma, which in the end results in low quality of education.
Therefore, we actually cannot demand much of lecturers whose quality of teaching and research is bad if we have not confirmed their prosperity, so they no longer need to divide time and mind with the matter of meeting the needs of life.
In this context, we need to urge the government to foster a strong political will to ensure the welfare of educators so they can focus time and attention on efforts to educate the nation's young generation as well as possible. Without a guarantee of welfare, educators will forever be faced with a moral dilemma, which in the end results in low quality of education.
Improving the quality of education must first begin with guaranteeing the welfare of educators. Because in the hands of the educators, the quality of education is determined.
Siti Murtiningsih
Siti Murtiningsih, Dean of the faculty of Philosophy of Gajah Mada University (UGM) and a member of the Yogyakarta (DIY) Education Council
This article was translated by Hyginus Hardoyo.
