To: The Head Department of National Education
From: Al-Izzah Islamic School
Subject: Teacher Quality Upgrading as the Key Success of Improving Education Quality including Education Internationalisation in the Country
Purpose
The main objective of this briefing paper is to alert the Head of Department of National Education to the issues of national education quality involving internationalisation of secondary and higher education in Indonesia and to recommend the Head of Department of National Education developing an action plan to improve the current educational practices and policies.
Background
Globalisation, represented in the changes of economic life, society and information technology, has radically shifted the nature of educational structure and system within the country. It changes the basic nature of learning process and promotes commoditisation of education that shapes learning different from its traditional form (Kenway as cited by Green, 2006). In the past few years, national education in the country has become more open and progressive. The rapid growth of information technology and intensity of international education meetings and conferences especially among neighbouring countries has facilitated the national education department to compare, to develop and even to adopt global policies indicated by internationalisation of secondary and higher education in the country.
This educational transformation, from local to global education, has unavoidably called on educators to revisit and reconceptualize not only their education goals and orientation but also their pedagogical philosophy and strategies. Learning is no longer constrained by time and space. The teachers’ knowledge and expertise in their subjects and in operating millennium technologies is no longer optional. It is the responsibility of the government as the policy makers as well as educators/teachers as “the engineers” to ensure that the adopted educational concepts and curricula can be properly translated and put into classrooms. Therefore, preparing competent and qualified teachers is deemed critical for successful practices of globalised education without which the national education quality will not improve.
Issues
The people’s scepticism to the impacts of internationalisation of education on the improvement of national education quality does not mean that the growth of internationalisation will stop to evolve. Today it may be wise and reasonable to see globalised education as an inevitable consequence of social changes and of nature of social development including globalisation. We have to stat thinking of how to best prepare students to cope with the unprecedented challenges rather than being emotionally resistant and sceptic which hinders us to see reality of the future.
As a response to globalisation, in 2002 the Indonesian government has initiated a legal framework for reforming the national education resulting in the increase of national budget spending on education reaching 20% of total national expenditure. In the following year (2003), the government introduced new regulation on national education system promoting access and quality of education for all (nine year school program), decentralisation of education management and education standardisation including internationalisation of national education. In 2005, the law on teachers and lectures was proposed with main agenda improving teacher and lecturer’s teaching quality including recognition of teacher as profession, teacher qualification, certification, and incentive scheme.
The above educational reform agenda in particular internationalisation of education seemingly promise improvement to the quality of national education. However, today after eight years of practice, we may be witnessing that the quality of national education does not improve as predicted.
Discussion
Since firstly introduced in 2003, internationalisation of secondary and higher education in the country is expected to provide opportunity for improving the national education quality as well as gaining prestige among countries under OECD alliance. However, the emergence of various issues following the application of internationalisation has indicated that the existing educational policies are apparently not well interpreted and might not accommodate the current condition especially the available human resources or teachers. The government might assume that by raising the educational budget and integrating national with international curricula will be adequate to improve the quality of national education. However, the current educational practices exhibits that there has been another factor which is also critical in supporting the policies and practices that is qualified teachers without which the improvement of national education will be difficult to achieve.
A number of studies have informed that teacher is the most significant resource in school (Department of Education & Training Melbourne, 2005; OECD, 2009; Wei, et al., 2010). However, a study carried out by Alam (2008) reveals that the numbers of teachers in the country with sound knowledge and skills of pedagogy is very limited. Furthermore, World Bank (Undated) and Firman (Undated) report that as the result of implementing law on teachers and lectures (from 2004), a huge number of existing teachers in the country become underqualified (90% primary school, 55% junior high school and 25% senior high school). Ironically, a number of studies also report that there are mismatch (out of field) teachers distributed in different provinces. High population of existing teachers is also likely to create another problem leading to unfair competition and poor professional development. High pressures and demands in international standard education such as new learning standard and assessment, new learning skills, updated curriculum content and effective use of information technology require teachers to be more professional and proficient in their teaching styles and strategies (Hargreaves, 2006). The teachers are expected to run their teaching by considering the international contexts and standards even though they are teaching local students.
In their practices, teachers who are eligible to teaching international standard school is expected to 1) understand the international context of education; 2) value students’ multilingual abilities; 3) employ strategies that facilitate the academic achievement of students from diverse cultural groups; 4) be familiar with international student characteristics, including stage theories of development, age-level characteristics and student variability in learning; 5) be sensitive to the difficulties transition can cause and skilled in supporting students and parents; 6) actively seek to enrich both what and how they teach with multiple international perspectives and 7) be reflective practitioner who continually evaluates the effects of his or her choices and actions (Snowball, 2007, pp. 247-254).
In addition to important role of teacher in the school, research conducted in OECD countries points out that raising teacher quality is most likely to lead to substantial gains in school performances (Timperley, et al., 2007; OECD, 2009; Wei, et al., 2010). However, in the country the professional development for teachers, especially those teaching international standard school, is still ineffectively carried out (Supriatna, Undated). The current professional development scheme initiated by the government including teacher certification, professional and additional allowance for certified teachers and school-based teacher professional development, seem to be effective in the paper but not in practices. A huge number of abuses and issues in the implementation lead to ineffective results of professional development.
Currently, teachers eagerly seeking certification are more attracted to the professional allowance gained after holding the certificate rather than improving their pedagogical performances (Indonesia.go.id, 2008, 2009). Many teachers attend and participate in conferences, courses and training programs driven by motive collecting as many credentials as possible instead of developing their teaching related skills and knowledge. A number of incidents also show that in order to be successful in certification some teachers provide unreal professional experience evidences in their resumes or curriculum vitae. Moreover, poor certification procedures, inconsistent and unclear standardisation, and pressure from teacher association to soften the standard of certification process might also have great contribution to the failure of certification program.
Dealing with school-based professional development, the government should recognize that only a limited number of schools provide both pre and in-service training program for their teachers. Many schools especially the administrators are still unaware of the important of effective and on going professional development for improving their student learning outcomes (Supriatna, Undated). Accordingly, professional development is deemed worthless since it deteriorates teacher’s teaching time and spends school budget. In addition, many schools seem to have misconception of the school-based professional development. They should fully understand that the training programs participated by their teachers should be relevant with the existing needs of the teachers. However, at present time many schools and administrators design or delegate their teachers to participate in professional development program which is not factual and less meaningful for their individual development as teachers.
Recommendations
To develop the national education quality as well as improving effectiveness of the current educational policies and practices, I suggest that:
- That the Head of National Education Department establishes the consistent and reliable national teacher competency standards;
- That the Head of National Education Department provides clear routes and standard to enter teaching profession;
- That the Head of National Education Department improves pre-service teacher education programs to meet the national teacher competency standards;
- That the Head of National Education Department upgrade under-qualified teachers through on going professional development programs and continuing education;
- That the Head of National Education Department conducts reliable and effective teacher certification scheme;
- That the Head of National Education Department develops effective school-based teacher professional development;
- That the Head of National Education Department develops robust and reliable supervision team to monitor and evaluates the effectiveness of the above programs.
References
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Department of Education & Training Melbourne. (2005). Professional learning in effective schools. Published by Leadership and Teacher Development Branch, Retrieved on October 22, 2010 from http://www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/edulibrary/public/teachlearn/teacher/ProfLearningInEffectiveSchools.pdf.
Firman, H. (Undated). Teachers quality improvement in the context of current education reform in Indonesia. Retrieved on October 25, 2010 from http://home.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/cice/forum/seminar78ppt.pdf
Green, A. (2006). Education, globalisation, and the nation states in (Ed) Lauder et al, Education, Globalisation and Social Change, Oxford Press, Oxford. pp 192-197.
Hargreaves, A. (2006). Four ages of professionalism and professional learning in (Ed) Lauder et al, Education, Globalisation and Social Change, Oxford Press, Oxford. pp 673-691.
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