Honorary teachers are appointed by school authorities. Since they are not hired as government employees, they only receive honorariums, without any other benefits.
"We have a total of 293,848 honorary teachers who have passed the first and second stages of the recruitment exam, and they will be inducted as contract teachers," the ministry's director general for teachers and education staff, Iwan Syahril, informed during a meeting with Commission X of the House of Representatives (DPR RI) in Jakarta on Wednesday.
With the latest induction, 388,313 of the total 506,252 positions offered under the contractual scheme for teachers will be filled, the director general informed.
He said that the remaining 117,939 positions are still vacant as no applicants have applied for the positions during the two recruitment stages.
"Our data revealed that no applicants applied for 79,937 positions at schools considered to be located in remote and inaccessible locations," Syahril noted.
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The director general cited the case of teachers from Jakarta's Thousand Islands region who applied for North Jakarta schools, even though they had a greater chance to get recruited if they applied for a teaching position in their own locality.
The ministry's data has also revealed that at least 34,800 positions have remained empty despite their being in locations that are considered more accessible and less remote, he added.
After evaluating these findings, the ministry will optimize the allocation of teaching positions to ensure no positions are left without applicants in future recruitments, Syahril said.
The ministry has estimated that 758,018 contract teachers will need to be recruited in 2022, as per the recommendation of the parliament's Commission X, which considered the necessity for religious study teachers when making its suggestion, he noted.
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Translator: Indriani, Nabil Ihsan
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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