Attracting, Retaining, and Developing Teachers in Rural Schools in Indonesia: an Overview

Abstraksi

There are at least three main issues regarding teachers in rural schools in Indonesia. The issues are related to rural teacher shortages, rural teacher retention, and rural teacher development. This paper is aimed to overview the strategies or policies initiated by the government of Indonesia, in this case, the Ministry Of Education and Culture (MORA), to address these issues, particularly since the beginning of decentralization era. The government of Indonesia has initiated several policies to attract and retain teachers to teach in rural schools. The first policy is the law number 14 year 2005 on teacher and lecturer. With this law, teaching becomes a profession, in which teachers are respected and are more appreciated, including rural teachers. Another policy is the regulation of Minister of National Education Number 32 year 2007 on Welfare Incentive for rural teachers. Later, in 2009, the government initiated government act number 41 year 2009 on teacher and lecturer incentives, special incentive for teachers and lecturers who teach in rural schools, and honoural incentives for professors. While, in relation to professional development for rural teachers, there is no any special professional development for rural teachers. The current policies and practices apply for all teachers, including rural teachers. PKB (Continous Professional Development) for teachers have been conducted since 2010. These policies initiated by the government to address the issues of rural teachers should be appreciated. However, some improvement should be made, especially in terms of their implementation.