JakartaPost-July 18, 2023
After a high school student in Temanggung Regency, Central Java, tried to burn down his school on June 27, Indonesian social media was awash with one question: Why? As the news cycle unfolded, it turns out the 14-year-old is a victim of physical and verbal bullying not only by his schoolmates but also by some of his teachers. He shared in a press conference that his teacher would rip his school assignment to pieces. The school principal, Bejo Pranoto, described him to media outlets as an “attention seeker” who would puke when he was called into the teachers’ room. Also in June, a female student at a state high school in Nunukan, North Borneo, was reportedly slapped by a social studies teacher at school. Seeing the bruise on her face, her parents demanded that the teacher be removed from office as her daughter was scared to go to school again. Her mother Maslina is still fighting an uphill battle to get the teacher even sanctioned. The nation’s attention has been recently put on Indonesian teachers, whose quality has been labeled “poor” by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) since 2015. A World Bank report in 2020 has called for a “teacher reform” in Indonesia, saying that Indonesian teachers’ knowledge in language, math and pedagogy was very low compared with other countries. But beyond falling short in educational quality, these new cases show that many teachers, who are often referred to as students’ “second parents”, are also lacking in their emotional abilities to connect with the students as well. All too common Discussions about bad teachers at Indonesian schools are usually shared between students, with many often tolerating inappropriately behaved teacher. Education observer and former commissioner of the Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) Retno Listyarti lamented such cases given the existing Education and Culture Ministerial Regulation (Permendikbud) No. 82/2015 on the prevention of and countermeasures against acts of violence in educational institutions. “If schools actually implemented the regulation, such acts of violence should’ve been prevented,” Retno told the Post. Read more at: https://www.thejakartapost.com/paper/2023/07/18/when-teachers-are-the-bullies-where-do-students-go.html.
