Teacher supply is already a big challenge for many developing countries such as Indonesia, let alone the supply of quality teachers.

1. Quality Teachers:
Short Supply, Unevenly distributed
By: Iwan Syahril

2. 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.

3. 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).

4. Teacher
Professionalization
• 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).

5. Teacher Quality &
Equity
• Quality teachers are not evenly distributed.
• US: urban, suburban, rural; socioeconomic
status.
• Developing world: urban/rural;
socioeconomic status.

6. Case: Indonesia

8. Education in Indonesia
4th 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.

9. 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.

10. Source: Del Granado et al., 2007.

11. Source: Del Granado et al., 2007.

12. 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

13. Teacher Absenteeism

14. “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.

15. Teacher deployment & decentralization
Ambiguity 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.

16. 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)?

17. Centralization or
Decentralization?
• Which one works better in addressing the
issue of equity of teacher distribution, and
in the issue of teacher absenteeism?