"We have not had recruitment for librarians for schools since a very long time," Praptono noted during the 2023 Library National Coordination Meeting here, Monday.
There is still a shortage of librarians in educational institutions. Out of the 248 thousand educational institutions, only 40,291 librarians are spread out across 502 districts or cities.
According to Praptono, this means several educational institutions in certain regions do not have librarians, given that the number of districts and cities in Indonesia had reached 514.
Moreover, out of these 40,291 librarians, 59.4 percent do not hold a bachelor's degree.
Meanwhile, 30.8 percent have a bachelor's degree according to Basic Data of Education and nine percent hold a degree according to Verification and Validation.
In addition, most of these librarians, reaching 24,118, are stationed in primary schools. Moreover, 8,275 librarians are in middle schools, 4,570 in high schools, and 791 in vocational schools.
The ministry has not opened recruitment for librarians since not many people are interested in taking up the position, he explained.
The role of a librarian in school is largely considered unattractive by members of the public owing to the lingering perception that it does not have much career mobility, he explained.
This is due to the fact that the job of a librarian is a functional occupation, so meeting the credit score target is difficult, he noted.
Despite this, Praptono made assurance that this problem will be addressed at the earliest through a new regulation called the Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Ministerial Regulation No. 1 of 2023 on Functional Occupation.
"Functional occupations' performance is no longer evaluated based on the credit score but rather from the work commitment or work contract between them and their superiors," he stated.
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Translator: Astrid F H, Fadhli Ruhman
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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