JAKARTA: The government will transfer thousands of nonpermanent teachers working under contract schemes from regional administrations to the central government to ease local fiscal pressures, a move that revives concerns of recentralisation of educators.
State Secretary Prasetyo Hadi announced the move on Tuesday after a meeting among several ministers and lawmakers at the House of Representatives to address long-standing appeals from teachers employed by the government for greater certainty about their employment status and career prospects.
Under the new arrangement, teachers currently working as part-time government contract employees will be appointed to full-time positions. Meanwhile, full-time contract teachers will be given the opportunity to go through the selection process to become state employees.
“In regard to their employment status, we also agreed their status will be changed to that of central government employees,” Prasetyo said.
Most nonpermanent teachers, both working in part- or full-time positions, are employed under the Government Employees with Work Agreements (PPPK) scheme. They are managed by regional administrations, with their salaries paid through regional budgets.
But critics say teachers remain underpaid, often earning far below provincial minimum-wage standards despite having the same workload as state employees and contract teachers.
The government’s move came amid mounting fiscal pressures on regional administrations, driven by budget austerity measures imposed by Prabowo, including cuts to regional transfers.
The budget efficiency was forced to free up funds for the President’s flagship programmes such as the multitrillion-rupiah free nutritious meal programme.
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Data from the Finance Ministry showed a shift in spending toward the central government budget, with spending rising from Rp 213.4 trillion (US$12 billion) in 2024 to Rp 490.7 trillion in the 2027 draft state budget.
Critics said the increase has been largely driven by the free meals programme, which is partially funded through the education allocation in the state budget.
Meanwhile, transfers to regions for education purposes fell from Rp 340.7 trillion in 2024 to Rp 277.1 trillion in next year’s draft state budget.
A teacher carries free, nutritious meal packages on Tuesday to be distributed to students at the SLBN Pajajaran state special needs school in Bandung, West Java. (Antara/Raisan Al Farisi)
Deputy Home Minister Bima Arya Sugiarto said on Tuesday regional leaders had repeatedly raised concerns over the need for greater fiscal support from the central government to cover nonpermanent government employees’ salaries and benefits, as well as a solution for underpaid informal teachers.
The Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Ministry has started preparing the transition scheme for 955,245 teachers employed as full-time nonpermanent workers and 231,246 part-time educators next year.
Minister Rini Widyantini said it would help address the country’s need for 526,689 additional teachers nationwide.
The new positions will cover roles at schools and education programmes under the Religious Affairs Ministry and Primary and Secondary Education Ministry, as well as Prabowo’s flagship Sekolah Rakyat and Sekolah Garuda programmes, the minister said in a statement on Wednesday.
In a statement on Thursday, the Education and Teachers Association (P2G) welcomed and supported the transfer plan, saying it could help address long-standing problems in managing the country’s teaching workforce, including recruitment, distribution, and pay.
The group also called for full-time nonpermanent teachers to be appointed as civil servants without undergoing the standard civil servant recruitment process.
P2G advocacy chief Iman Zanatul Haeri argued the selection could disadvantage older teachers, as the prevailing regulations generally limit new civil servant appointments to those aged 35 or younger.
However, the plan raised concerns among some analysts about a return to more centralised governance, as seen during the authoritarian New Order regime of late president Soeharto, which ended in 1998.
Djohermansyah Djohan, a professor at the Institute of Public Administration (IPDN) and former Home Ministry regional autonomy director general, said the move for the nonpermanent teachers could turn what is essentially a fiscal problem into a broader restructuring of relations between the central government and regional administrations.
“If responsibilities that have traditionally belonged to the regional government are gradually pulled back to the central [government], we have to honestly say this is a sign of recentralisation,” he said on Friday, warning the move could set a precedent for bringing other regional employees under Jakarta’s control.
Rather than recruiting teachers as central government employees, Djohermansyah urged the government to increase regional transfers to help regions ease fiscal pressure and continue funding teachers under government contracts without altering the existing division of authority. - Jakarta Post/ANN
