Banda Aceh (Aceh Kita: (30/05/07) Quality improvement training for 480 teachers in three regencies, namely Banda Aceh, Aceh Besar and Pidie, has finished.  The event was closed at the Aceh provincial Education Agency Hall in Banda Aceh (30/05). The ceremony was led by Aceh Governor Assistant III, Dermawan. Deputy Chairman of Aceh Education Agency Anwar Muhammad and Banda City Mayor Mawardi Nurdin as well as other officials attended the event. 

The training has been carried out since one year ago by the Sampoerna Foundation, and facilitated by the Deutsche Bank.  The training program includes lectures on teaching subjects, teaching techniques as well as teachers profession development. Aceh Governor Assistant III, Dermawan, express hopes that teachers that have undergone the training would be able to imprive education quality for chidlren in Aceh. “Teachers with good quality have to offer good quality education for students,” he said.

Dermawan hopes that other donor institutions would follow the steps to provide training programs to improve education quality in Aceh. He points out at post-tsunami reconstruction and asserted that education development is important as well and Aceh reconstruction should not only focus on infrastructure development.

Hilman Ardiansyah, Sampoerna Foundation Program Officer said that the training program that had just been completed is focused on 8 main subjects tested in the national examination (UN). “We are focusing on those main subjects because we want to maintain high passing rate that has reached 80% high schools in Aceh in 2006,” he asserted. He added that the test carried out before the training in June 2006 and after the training, revealed that there has been a significant improvement in teachers’ capacity in mastering the teaching subject. “We hope that the success of this teachers training program will encourage teachers’ quality improvement in other regions in Aceh,” Hilman said.

The data of the Ministry of National Education 2004 – 2005, revealed that the tsunami in Aceh has make some 1,800 teachers vanished. Currently, there are 38,439 teachers in Aceh. 35% of them did not fulfill the academic qualification.