BATU: Redeployment of Class Teachers

The Subdistrict Education Office in Bumiaji, Kota Batu has redeployed 95 class teachers as part of an effort to disseminate PAKEM to non MBE partner schools and to raise the quality of PAKEM in the partner schools. The picture below shows the Head of the Bumiaji Subdistrict Education Office and two of the school supervisors.

The redeployment of the class teachers started when the Bumiaji Subdistrict office observed the problems that were occurring in some of the schools. The problems that demanded attention included: many teachers living a long way from their schools, some schools needing rejuvenating, the need to improve teacher performance and the need to distribute teachers more evenly.

The teacher redeployment program required some preparation, including establishing a basis for the redeployment. As a first step the sub-district office held meetings to explain the program to all school clusters in the subdistrict.

During these meetings at-tempts were made to accommodate the aspirations of the members of the cluster in respect of the redeployment program. In the end it was agreed that teachers who have worked for more than ten years in one school are obliged to be redeployed.

In implementing the class teacher redeployment program, staff of the subdistrict education office saw the opportunity to disseminate PAKEM to non MBE schools and to raise the quality of PAKEM in the MBE partner schools.

They used the opportunity to place teachers with good potential in each school. They did this by placing capable teachers from the MBE partner schools, who were due to be redeployed, in other MBE and non MBE schools. It was hoped that these teachers would be able to act as agents for change in the new schools. It appears that the strategy is already having an impact.

This can be seen from the MBE and non MBE schools that have received redeployed teachers. The photograph above shows Bu Lilis a teacher from SD Punten 1 who has been moved to SD Punten 2. Her classroom already shows the signs of a good PAKEM classroom in the displays and classroom activities.

MBE and DBE1 Working Together in Sidoarjo

There is a growing awareness of the need to work out the actual unit costs of educating a student for a year. Indeed, the District Head of Kabupaten Sidoarjo, Bapak Drs. H. Win Hendrarso MSi. asked for the assistance of DBE1 to work out the unit costs for primary, junior secondary and senior secondary students.

To support this, on 12 and 13 October 2006, DBE1 invited staff from the research centers at the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) and the Ministry of Religious Affairs (MORA) to a workshop in Surabaya to act as resource persons and observers. Participants in the workshop from Sidoarjo district included members of the Local Parliament, the Local Development Agency, the District Education Office and representative school principals from primary, junior secondary and senior secondary schools.

MBE and DBE1, working together, invited all the participants in the workshop to calculate the unit cost of educating each student per month in Sidoarjo district. MBE sent Prima Setiawan and Bagus Priambodo as education finance consultants and Bapak Drs. Sarpan M.M from Pati district and Bapak Drs. Subandrio from Kota Pasuruan, who had already done a similar exercise in their own districts to act as resource persons.

Above you can see the participants' enthusiasm, which was encouraged by the presence throughout of a member of the local parliament, Bapak H. ABD Mujib Hasyim, and the Head of the Sidoarjo District Education Office, Bapak Hadi Sutjipto. There were many questions, comments and discussions during the presentations, especially when members of the schools group presented their calculations.

This workshop was the first step in calculating unit costs in Sidoarjo. The participants made follow-up plans including the formation of a small committee to make more detailed calculations of unit costs and to present the results to the District Education Office, Local Development Agency, Finance Department and members of the Local Parliament.

MAGETAN: Three Schools Become One

SD Magetan 2, 3 and 4 are situated on the same site. Only SD 2 is an MBE partner school, but the MBE innovations have already spread to all three schools. In fact, even though the three schools have not formally been merged into one school, they are already organized as one unit.

All the classes of the same level have been placed next to each other, so that the three parallel grade 1 classes are next to each other and the three teachers work together in planning and implementing their teaching. If you go into the classrooms it is difficult to tell which class is from the partner school and which not, because all the classes are more or less as good as each other.

Left: (left to right) Bpk Sujitno, School Principal of SD 4 Magetan; Ibu Sri Sunarsih, School Principal of SD 2; Ibu Suryati, MBE Science Facilitator; and Ibu Slamet Rahayu, School Principal of SD 3.
Right: Okki, a grade 6 student at SD Magetan 2 showing the display in her classroom.