Medan. The endeavor to improve teachers’ well-being is not as easy as it seems. Although the money is ready, distributing it to the teachers need a long time. Head of Subdivision of Educator Improvement of the Education Office of North Sumatra Maju Siregar estimates that the budget for teacher profession in 2008 will not be absorbed until 100%.

This year, North Sumatra accepts an allocation of teacher professional support as much as Rp 134 billion. However, until end of September, the support was only Rp 4.7 billion liquefied. “This is for 600 teachers in 16 kabupaten or cities in North Sumatra,” says Maju on Tuesday (10/21).

From the 16 kabupaten or cities, Pematangsiantar accepted the largest portion. As many as 93 teachers in the area has received the support. Further, in Kabupaten Labuhanbatu, as many as 68 teachers have accepted support and in Asahan 48 teachers have accepted it.

Seeing this condition, Maju estimates by the end of this year, the budget for professional support will not be utilized completely. He argues that there are many barriers in the proposal process of this professional support. For instance, many documents of teachers do not fit in requirements, while the number of teachers who have accepted registration number from the General Directory of Teacher and Educator Quality Improvement has reached 5,412 people. The problem generally lies in the difficulty for teachers to fulfill the minimum teaching time requirement as high as 24 hours a week. “If until the start of November 2008 teachers have not submitted proposals for a support, the budget allocation will be difficult to organize in the 2009 budget,” says Maju.

A similar event also happened in South Kalimantan. Thousands of teachers in the province failed to receive certification of profession. The certificate is one of the requirements to accept a professional support. Head of Pengurus Daerah Persatuan Guru Republik Indonesia (PGRI) of South Kalimantan Dahli pities the condition because the quota for teacher certification 2008 for South Kalimantan has become a waste. “South Kalimantan got a quota of 4,012 people, but 1,042 of them were returned to Jakarta,” says Dahri. 

In fact, the number of teachers who do not own a professional certificate is large. Dahri is still grateful because the payment for the professional support in Kalimantan is quite good. "True, that the support is not accepted every month, but regularly, for example, once in three months,” he says.