Jakarta, Monday (January 7th, 2008) -- The program priority in 2008 of the Directorate General of Teachers and Educators Quality Improvement (Ditjen PMPTK) deals with the teacher certification and profession allowance. The objective of this program is to improve the quality of teachers. Other activities will include the training for teachers including educators.

It was said by the Director General of Teachers and Educators Quality Improvement, Baedhowi in the Coordination Meeting on PPPPTK and LPMP Program of 2008 held at Wisma Handayani of the Ministry of National Education, Cipete, Jakarta, Monday (1/7/2008). The meeting was attended by 122 Heads of the Centers for Teachers and Educators Development and Empowerment (P4TK) and Heads of the Educational Quality Assurance Institutions (LPMP).
  
Baedhowi said, out of the quota for the teacher certification program in the years 2006/2007 which reached 20,000 teachers and educators, 8,839 teachers and educators qualified for the certification. They have been provided with profession allowance at the second week of December 2007. "The disbursement process of the allowance is in accordance with the government policy, in this case, the Ministry of Finance. The payment of the incentive or profession allowance is directly transferred to the account of the concerned teacher," he said.
  
Meanwhile, Baedhowi added, the teacher certification allowance for the quota of the year 2007 would be paid in 2008. He said, out of 2.7 million teachers, 1.8 teachers need to undertake a certification. The certification process would be done in phases. In 2007, 2,000 teachers have been certified. "The report is being completed now. We are awaiting for such report from the Teachers and Educators Institutions, as the certification organizing committee, " he said.
  
Baedhowi said, the budget for the certification in 2008 would be managed by LPMP, not like in 2007 which was controlled by the ministry head office. He added, the profession allowance would not be paid by the ministry, but by the provincial offices of the ministry. Currently, he said, a coordination was being done on how the implementation of the certification in 2007 by the LPMP and LPTK. "They (LPMP dan LPTK) shall enter into contracts and make preparations as well as, establish co operations with provincial ministry offices on how the implementation of the allowance payment in 2008."
  
Director of Education and Training Development (Dir Bindiklat) of the Directorate General of the Directorate General of Teachers and Educators Quality Improvement (Ditjen PMPTK), Ministry of National Education, Sumarna Surapranata, said, the programs to be implemented by his office would include among others the development of the accreditation system for the education and training institutions and quality assurance institutions. In order to support these activities, the Directorate of Education and Training Development in a collaboration with Australia would develop a quality assurance model namely, Educational Quality Assurance Model (EQUAM).
  
Other programs are the education and training accreditation and competency-based education and training standardization, development of guidelines for the competency test and certification of functional and structural staff, professionalism quality improvement of trainers (Widya Iswara) and learning improvement through lesson study. The lesson study program will be held in Minahasa, Bukittinggi, and Samarinda.
  
The Director of Educator Profession, Achmad Dasuki, said the profession education for teachers holding certain positions can be done through the portofolio, teacher profession education and training, and profession education for teachers with excellent education and achievement. He said, out of the quota of 2000 persons, 807 teachers have registered for this education. "So, there are still 1,200 opportunities, some teachers may not register as they think they have not shown adequate achievement," katanya.
  
Meanwhile, Achmad said, the participants of teacher certification who were not qualified is due to their lack of career development, scientific writing and appreciations. Further, a certification team would be established in order to facilitate the coordination. Currently, the certification for teachers holding certain positions were organized by 61 partner LPTKs and 31 main LPTKs.
  
Director of Educators (Dir. Tendik) of the Directorate General of Teachers and Educators Quality Improvement (Ditjen PMPTK), Surya Dharma, said, the Directorate of Educators had prepared 35 modules for principals and 25 modules for the school supervisors. In addition, in order to meet the standard competency requirement for school supervisors,  a subsidy would be provided for 700 persons. "In the future, we will have a uniform standard for the selection of the principals and school supervisors," he said.
  
Director of Informal Teachers and Educators (Dir PTK-PNF), Erman Syamsuddin, said, in 2008, his office will provide grant for the quality improvement of the Informal Teachers and Educators. The total allocated grant would reach Rp. 4.8 billion which would be used to finance education and training to improve the competencies of 1,980 Informal Teachers and Educators for PTK-PNF.***