to challenge the test _via_ a judicial review request in the Supreme Court (Liputan6.com 2012). The FSGI’s Retno Listyarti has likened the Competency Test to ‘malpractice’ arguing that implementation of the test has often been full of errors (e.g. incomplete questions, typographical errors, inappropriate questions given teacher’s field of expertise) and that some teachers have to leave their classes and bear significant costs simply to take the tests (see, for instance, Ayuningtias 2012). In the face of such concerted resistance and with fiscal sustainability issues being addressed through the moratorium, the central government has so far baulked at incorporating the test into the certification process.

Teachers unions have also expressed concern about the way in which the certification program is administered, noting many districts are slow in paying the professional allowance to teachers and that some teachers face difficulty in meeting the 24 teaching periods per week requirement.<sup>25</sup> But with the program generating huge unconditional pay rises for teachers, they have staunchly defended it, framing the pay rises as essential for improved educational quality and a matter of teachers’ rights (see PGRI 2015). In this position, they have received strong support from regional political and bureaucratic elites, especially local education agencies, for whom the pay rises represent an opportunity to lubricate networks of corruption and patronage.<sup>26</sup> It is possible that the teacher certification program has had positive ‘side-effects’, for instance, with regards to teacher absenteeism. A recent ACER/SMERU study on teacher absenteeism in Indonesia found that between 2003 and 2013 absenteeism rates at primary schools fell from 19 percent to 10-11 percent (McKenzie _et al_ 2014). One possible explanation for this is that, by linking teacher pay to the number of hours teachers carry out face-to-face instruction, the certification program has incentivized teachers to turn up to work more often than before. Several of our informants noted that it was commonplace for school principals to manipulate teacher attendance data—specifically, that submitted through _Dapodik_ , MoEC’s education database, for the purposes of determining eligibility for the professional allowance.<sup>27</sup> But the methodology employed in the ACER/SMERU study accounted for this possibility through direct observation of teachers in the classroom and cross-checking teacher attendance against teacher rosters suggesting that the improvement in teacher absenteeism rates is real. The teacher certification program may also have had positive side effects with regards to teacher redistribution, as we will discuss below. However, in terms of its ostensible aim—improving teacher subject knowledge and pedagogical skills—the evidence so far suggests that it has failed.

In sum, then, in terms of our concern with the political and social conditions that are conducive to teacher management reform, the certification issue illustrates again the crucial role of central government commitment to reformist policy instruments that seek to precipitate change at the local level, albeit indicating in this case the problems when such commitment evaporates.

# **5.4 Periodization of School Principals**

> 25Suryahadi and Sanbodho (2012).

> 26 Interviews with local education agency officials in District A, Municipality A, District B, and Municipality B, May-August 2015.

> 27 The typical example given was of a _guru PNS_ being recorded as teaching a class when in fact it was taught by a _guru honor_ .

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