Quality Teachers: Short Supply, Unevenly distributed

By: Iwan Syahril

Teachers Matter!

CHART:  Sanders, W. and Rivers, J. (1996) Cumulative and residual effects of teachers on future student academic achievement. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Value-Added Research and Assessment Center.

The mystery of quality teachers?

• The tyranny of “commonsense” - the “apprenticeship of observation” (Lortie, 1975).

• The problem of attribution error (Kennedy, 2010).

• Lack of research on core questions on teaching and its predicaments (Cohen, 2011).

• Being professional: quality & standards of practice (e.g., all teachers must have bachelor’s degree & pass certification exam).

• Being a professional: status & standing. (e.g., doubling base salary, social standing).

Teacher Professionalization

Teacher Quality & Equity

• Quality teachers are not evenly distributed.

• US: urban, suburban, rural; socioeconomic status.

• Developing world: urban/rural; socioeconomic status.

Case: Indonesia

Education in Indonesia4th world’s largest (After China, India, & USA)

50 million students

2.7 million teachers (70% of nation’s civil service)

250,000 schools

84% schools under MoNE, 16% under MoRA

Private schools: 7% elementary, 56% lower secondary, 67% upper secondary.

Teacher Oversupply in Indonesia: Student Teacher Ratio (STR)

(Del Granado et al., 2007)

• STR Asia Pacific. Primary School 31:1. Junior Secondary 25:1.

• STR Indonesia (National Policy). Primary School 40:1. Junior Secondary 28:1.

• STR Indonesia in practice. Primary School 20:1. Junior Secondary 14:1.

Source: Del Granado et al., 2007.

Source: Del Granado et al., 2007.

Inequalities in teacher distribution (Del Granado et al., 2007)

• Overall, 55% schools oversupplied, 34% schools undersupplied.

• Urban: 68% oversupplied. Rural: 52% oversupplied. Remote: 66% undersupplied.

• Part-time teachers (adding undersupply claims) 6% of public primary teachers 25% of public secondary teachers

Teacher Absenteeism

“If all teachers were regularly teaching, the average [STR in Indonesia] would be 17

students per teacher, one of the best ratios in the world. ”

Source: Del Granado et al., 2007.

Teacher deployment & decentralizationAmbiguity 1: Since decentralization, districts are responsible for employing all public school teachers except those in religious schools but wages are still transferred to the districts’ budgets from central government.

Ambiguity 2: Religious school teachers who are civil servants are managed by the education unit in the Ministry of Religious Affairs (MoRA), not by the districts.

Ambiguity 3: The salary levels and promotional and reward systems for civil servants are set centrally, although many districts provide teachers within their jurisdictions with supplementary benefits and incentives.

Ambiguity 4: It is still not clear whether districts can reduce the teaching force by dismissing some civil service teachers, as they might want to do if they were to rationalize their student-teacher ratios. This problem is significant given that the majority of teachers at the primary and junior secondary levels are civil servants."

Source: Del Granado et al., 2007.

Dilemmas?

• Should districts be fully responsible for their teachers (wages, hiring/firing, deployment, etc.)?

• If so, how should we address the variabilities among districts (rich/poor districts, urban/rural/remote)?

Centralization or Decentralization?

• Which one works better in addressing the issue of equity of teacher distribution, and in the issue of teacher absenteeism?