Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – Around half the education agency heads across the country's 33 provinces are "incompetent" and only secured their positions because of campaigning they conducted for incumbent administration chiefs, a survey says.
The Indonesian Teachers Association (PGRI), which conducted the survey, said in Jakarta on Tuesday most education office heads in regions are former members of political teams linked to incumbent governors, mayors and regents.
"50 percent of them do not have the sufficient technical competency to head these education agencies," PGRI chairman Sulistiyo said after meeting with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the presidential palace in Jakarta.
"Some of them are former heads of local civilian police units, others are former heads of parks, special planning and public cemetery agencies or even former district heads. In short, many have never handled education issues before," he said.
Sulistiyo was accompanied by National Education Minister Bambang Sudibyo, himself a senior politician from the National Mandate Party (PAN) and a graduate from the Economics Faculty at the Gadja Mada University.
Sulistiyo said this phenomenon in appointing education heads came about after the enforcement of regional autonomy in the early 2000s.
He blamed 'bureaucratic behavior' on the part of local elite leaders as one of the major factors contributing to the poor quality of education in the country.
"We believe that any matter handled by people lacking expertise is doomed for downfall. We want the public to know about this, even though I think many have suspected it for a while, so we can improve the quality of the education environment," Sulistiyo said.
He said the PGRI reported the findings to the President during the Tuesday meeting, while recommending several criteria for candidates wishing to head local education agencies.
The criteria included a solid understanding of education issues, commitment to improving the quality of education and preferrably having had experience in the education sector at some point throughout their careers.
Sulistiyo also discussed the reluctancy of many regions to allocate enough funding for education, as required by the education law, with the President.
He said since the Constitutional Court ruled in early 2008 that teachers' salaries be incorporated in the education budget, many regional administrations allowed salaries to consume most of their annual education expenditures.
"PGRI has found that in many regions, only 10 percent of the education budgets are allocated for other posts, with the majority going to teachers," Sulistiyo said.
"[The constitutional mandate to allocate] 20 percent of the regional budget to education is simply not enough. We should also examine whether funding levels are sufficient enough to build quality education."
National Education Minister Bambang Sudibyo, speaking at the same the press conference, said local administrations should not incorporate teachers' salaries into their education budgets because the payments were distributed from central government funds.
The amended 1945 Constitution stipulates local administrations and the central government should allocate 20 percent of their budgets to education, which means regions should use their own funding to calculate how much mandatory funding they require, he said.
Bambang said he had asked the Finance Ministry to issue a regulation regarding the calculation of education spending in regions.
The minister said the central government had allotted around Rp 207.4 trillion to the education budget this year, with more than 80 percent going to regions in the form of general allocations while special funds would be set aside for the building and renovation of schools.
Regions should not include these central government funds into the calculation of their education budgets, he added.