In 2005, the central government issued Peraturan Pemerintah (PP) or Government Regulation No. 48 on the Promotion of Honorary Workers to Become Probationary Civil Servants. The Regulation specified that honorary workers with certain age and years of service could be promoted as calon pegawai negeri sipil (CPNS) or prospective civil servants.
The process of getting a teaching job with contract employment varies from school to school. All of the contract teachers whom we met hoped that their contract employment was temporary, and that eventually they would be promoted as a civil servant teacher. Here are stories from two contract teachers on how they got their teaching job and the process that they have to go through in realising the hope of someday becoming a civil servant.
When Indonesia was under the centralised government system, teacher recruitment was administered by the central government. At that time, the recruited teachers failed to meet teacher needs in many regions in Indonesia, especially in remote areas.
Data from the Ministry of Education and Culture shows the number of teachers in Indonesia is more than three million. Roughly 1.6 million teachers are civil servants, while the rest are on non-permanent employment—widely known as contract or honorary teachers.