Jakarta – Some 10,000 teachers Tuesday flooded the grounds of the national parliament compound here in a mass protest to demand at least a 100 percent increase in their salaries.
The teachers crowded the parliament compound and buildings, shouting and waving posters urging the government to pay heed to their plight.
"We are demanding better pay and more allowances to narrow the huge gap between structural and functional employees in the education sector," said Suwandi a protestor from Bandung, West Java. "For the sake of the future of the state and nation, pay attention to our welfare," said one of the banners carried by the protestors.
Parliamentary speaker Akbar Tanjung told representatives of the protestors that the government is now looking for sources of funding to increase the basic pay of teachers, who are among the lowest-paid civil servants in the country. "There are 1.7 million teachers nationwide. If a teacher gets a pay increase of 1,000 rupiah (15 US cents), the budget will have to be increased 1.7 billion (rupiah). This should be considered," Tanjung said.
The crowd of teachers swelled from 3,500 early in the morning to 10,000 by midday. Tanjung also said a 300 percent increase in teachers' allowances agreed by the government Monday would add trillions of rupiah to the exisiting budget.
Gogo Sumantri, an elementary school teacher in Bandung, said his salary of 800,000 rupiah (105 dollars) a month was barely enough to meet his family's daily needs. "I wanted my children to study in universities, but that's impossible with a low salary. So as they finish high school, I ask them to find jobs," he told "I've been a teacher for 25 years but I still can't afford to buy a house. I have six children to feed," he said. He and his family live in a house provided by the school.
Another 1,000 teachers went to the education ministry and demanded a meeting with the minister. They rejected a meeting with a director general who came to address them.
"We came here to directly meet with minister Yahya Muhaimin. If he doesn't come, we'll pitch camp here until he agrees to hold a dialogue with us," one of the protestors said according to the Detikcom online news service.
Structural teachers – those who also hold administrative posts in schools – have had their allowances raised under a scheme for senior public officials that became effective this month. But those who only teach have had no raise. The system has resulted in vast income gaps between teachers with the same length of service. Suwandi said the teachers were seeking a pay rise of at least 100 percent and an increase in teachers's allowances of around 500 percent.
The Jakarta protests were the latest in a series of teachers' strikes and protests in the past two weeks. The state Antara news agency reported that an estimated 32,000 teachers left Bandung for Jakarta early Tuesday morning on dozens of buses.
And in Payakumbuh city in North Sumatra some 6,000 said they planned to protest against the local branch of the Indonesian Teachers' Federationfor its failure to fight for their welfare, Antara said. "We haven't seen the role of PGRI in fighting for teachers here. PGRI should reform itself," said teacher Adnin Syam.
Education minister Muhaimin said Monday that a meeting between government officials and the teachers' association had agreed to raise teachers' allowance by 300 percent. But he said the decision had yet to be approved by the president.
He said the meeting also agreed to review a controversial government decision to raise allowances and pay for senior officials.
The minister had previously said that although the government wanted to raise teachers' pay, cash shortages would only allow a rise of some 100 percent. The increase in teachers' allowances alone would cost the government 1.7 trillion rupiah (226.7 million dollars), according to the finance ministry.