Improving the Quality of Education through the Great Teacher Selection Program
Tags: Teachers, Quality, Education

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By Ahmad Hidayat, M.Pd

Teachers are the key to the quality of a nation’s education. Teacher is a profession that can awaken a nation that is in decline. A history study occurred when Nagasaki and Hiroshima were devastated by the atomic bomb explosion. Emperor Hirohito immediately gathered all the generals who were still alive, and asked them “How many teachers are left?”. The question certainly confused all the generals. At that moment, Emperor Hirohito thought far ahead. To this day, the teaching profession in Japan is highly respected, they call it “sensei” which means honor.

Japan’s concern and understanding of the strategic role of the teaching profession have made Japan continue to conduct evaluations in improving the quality of their teachers. Thanks to these conditions, Japan is currently one of the countries with the best education in the world. This statement is based on research conducted by the social progress imperative which put Japan in second place regarding the level of basic education worldwide as presented in the social progress index in 2017.

Ho Chi Minh who is the father of the Vietnamese nation said that “No teacher, no education, no education, no economic and social development” means that without teachers there is no education, and without education there is no economic and social development. This statement implies that teachers have an important role in the progress of education and the progress of a nation. Vietnam continues to improve education and improve the quality of teachers. Even the allocation of education funds in Vietnam touches 20% or the same as our country. But amazingly, the quality of Vietnam’s education is able to surpass Indonesia based on 2017 World Bank data.

The commemoration of National Teachers’ Day (November 25) during this pandemic period should certainly be a momentum for policy makers and for all Indonesian people, especially those who are engaged in education to think harder and fight even stronger in facing such a huge challenge. One of the things that must be considered is how to improve teacher quality as an effort to improve the quality of education. The program the writer offers is a great teacher screening program. This program consists of three phases of implementation. The first phase begins when the college accepts student teacher candidates, the author calls it the pre-teacher phase.

The improvement in the government’s attention to the welfare of teachers by allocating large enough education funds has made the public enthusiastic about enrolling their children in the Teaching Faculty or the Tarbiyah Faculty. This phenomenon has occurred in the past few years. Based on data taken from resources.ristekdikti.com in 2017, it is estimated that out of 1.5 million Indonesian students, about 300,000 undergraduate students have graduated from education per year. Meanwhile, the need for teachers is only about 40,000 people per year. This means that there is a serious over supply.

In this pre-teacher phase, the government should set clear standards for prospective teacher students. These standards then serve as a guide for selected universities to determine qualified teacher student candidates. Today many universities or colleges accept teacher students so easily. Meanwhile, candidates for other professions such as Medicine, Police, Army, and even other vocational schools have quite complicated requirements with high levels of intelligence and physical standards. We need to learn from Finland about what is special about teacher students there.

After that, students who have been selected are really well nurtured. Give a new theory of knowledge, which is in line with the projections of 21st century education. Lecturers who teach should not be arbitrary, because it is from them that students learn to become teachers who are full of talent, full of manners and full of knowledge. If the student selection is good, the resulting output will be good. If this is the case, the next phase is the phase when you become a teacher. The author calls this the post-teacher phase.

This phase is the most decisive phase in the success of improving teacher quality. In this phase, teachers are given regular training as a way for them to continue learning. The first training is focused on the interests of students, teachers must be closely supervised when educating students in the first assignments by the competent authority. They are also given directions about building the students’ character as a whole (knowing character, feeling character and action character). Only when they are really ready, let the teacher be independent in teaching, also in learning.

The next training is soft skill training, the first is training on the use of technology in learning. Of course in the future we hope that there will be no more technology-illiterate teachers. The number of evaluations of online teaching and learning activities during this pandemic must be an example so that they do not happen again in the future. The second is writing training (scientific papers, lesson plans, textbooks, or works of fiction). This training is very important for creating teachers who are creative in literacy and express their ideas. And lastly is training to be a good speaker and listener (discussion, seminar or presentation) as a form of educating and opening insights and a means of sharing knowledge.

The last phase is the phase when the teacher has retired. The author calls this the post-teacher phase. In this phase the teachers who have retired are given the opportunity to share with young teachers, as learning and as material for evaluation. Isn’t experience the best teacher? Yes, even though every era has different ways of solving problems, there are always positive values ​​generated from teachers who already have decades of experience. Such is the great teacher screening program. Of course there is no instant for a big change, as in the world of education. Starting from zero then darting, or standing still like this but walking nowhere. Glorious has always been educated in Indonesia.