By Nia Martiana, S.Pd
SM3T Teacher in Ende Regency 2nd cohort
Semarang State University, Indonesia
Shortage of teachers in rural areas has been one of a worldwide
challenge faced by many countries. This issue occurs not only in developing
countries such as Indonesia, India and Africans but also in developed countries
such as Australia, Canada and United States. Moreover, Australian Educators
have highlighted this shortage as a national crisis in the country (White,
Green, Reid, Lock, Hasting, & Cooper, 2008 as cited by Hudson, 2010). Geographical
condition and imbalance demographic distribution become the main factors in forming areas as rural. Furthermore, the vast area of a
country also contributes in parting many rural areas. This condition makes
teachers tend to prefer teaching in urban areas as they provide better access
and professional opportunity.
Indonesia is a
unique country. It has approximately 17.000 islands spread from west to east
separated by oceans. The big fives are Sumatra, Borneo, Papua, Sulawesi and
Java. The last is considered as the prominent land where Jakarta, the capital
city is situated with the largest amount of population. The rest of the islands
consist of small with lower density and even uninhabited. Therefore, the rural area with relatively
small population and geographical challenge scattered throughout a wide country
intensifies teacher shortages and some other problems.
According to Indonesian Ministry of
Education, some problems faced by rural teaching are shortage of teachers, imbalance
distribution, under qualification, low competencies and mismatched. The other
problems are the relatively high number of school cut off whereas the number of school
participation is still low.
Nowadays, the concern of rural education has been
brought to attention. Indonesian government with its Ministry of Education and some private institutions put this
issue as an essential matter for Indonesian education. In
order to solve this problems they promote some programs such as Maju Bersama
(SM3T and PPGT) by the Ministry of Education as well as Indonesia Mengajar and the other similar programs hold by private
institutions.
However, putting teachers to teach in rural
area is indeed another problem. Collins, as stated in Hudson (2008) noted that
attracting teachers to rural schools has presented a challenge for education
departments for years. Most of teachers who have teaching
experience in urban area are likely to deny teaching in rural ones. Social,
cultural and professional isolation may be reasons for losing rural teachers.
According to Watson & Hatton (1995) geographical isolation with strong
cultural differences such as recent immigrants, indigenous people, or isolated
rural dwellers may present issues for retaining teachers in rural school.
On the other
hand, teaching in rural schools gives benefit as well. Research conducted by
Ralph from Saskatchewan University (2003) summarized nine advantages of
teaching in rural schools, (1) better acquaintance with students, (2) high
community involvement, (3) support by staff and community, (4) better
acquaintance with families, (5) opportunity to engage in variety of
opportunity, (6) lower enrollments, (7) A “country side” pastoral setting, (8)
fewer students discipline problems, (9) opportunity to secure a rural teaching
position.
As previously stated, Ministry of Education has promoted two programs in providing teachers for
rural school through out Indonesia. These are PPGT (Integrated Teacher Education
Program) for preparing teacher candidates from rural areas, and SM3T (Education Bachelor preservice teaching in rural areas). These programs are aimed to
produce professional teachers. Since teaching in rural area is not free from
any challenges, the SM3T teacher candidates should be equipped with sufficient
preparation to cope with the challenges they probably would face during the duty
in rural areas. Therefore, the candidates should take part in the precondition
stage before leaving.
SM3T is a preservice teaching program of Education
Bachelor to participate in the accelerating education development in rural
areas of Indonesia. Here, rural areas are defined as the left behind areas,
frontier areas, and rural isolated area. The teachers should devote their selves
for the schools and the societies in which they are placed. This stage is the
initiating stage to prepare professional educators who will be brought to Teacher Profession
Program (PPG) for the next following year.
According to the guide book of SM3T published by
Directorate of Higher Education which is in charge in conducting SM3T program,
the purposes of this program are:
1.
To
help rural areas in solving the problems of education in terms of shortages of
teachers.
2. Giving
the experience of devotion to education bachelors so that the professionalism,
nationality, empathy, and creativity can be developed to solve education
problems, and responsible to the development of the nation, as well as having tough spirit of survival.
3.
Preparing teacher candidates to be
professional educators in rural schools of Indonesia.
4.
Preparing
professional educators before joining Teacher Profession Program.
The Scope of SM3T
In the placement school, SM3T teachers are supposed to
teach subjects they are asked by the headmasters. Since shortages of teachers are often faced by the schools, sometimes
they are asked to teach double subjects or double grades. However, the
scope of SM3T is not merely in the teaching duty. Extracurricular activities,
school management and triggering teaching innovation are some points to be done
by the teachers in the placement schools. Furthermore, SM3T teachers should
conduct community service activities in purpose to encourage the societies in
developing their environment.
·
Preparing Teacher for Rural School
Collins, as stated in Hudson
(2008), argues that candidates for rural teaching placements need to come with
personal characteristics, rural background, or educational experiences that predispose them to live in rural areas. Hence,
universities should be proactive by introducing rural education as part of
preservice teacher preparation (Boylan, 2004; Collins, 1999; Roberts, 2005).
Dealing with this matter, 12 chosen universities which are in charge of
conducting SM3T should initially prepare the participants in precondition stage
before leaving.
In the precondition stage,
the participants learn and equip themselves with educational material, such as
how to develop good syllabi, lesson plans and materials of study in the context
of rural schools. Simulation of dual grade teaching is also given here to
provide sufficient preparation for the participants in coping with the
condition there. Monk in Hudson (2008)
emphasizes that rural schools need high quality teachers who understand rural
areas, which necessitates contextualizing preservice teacher preparation,
survival material is considered important to learn before leaving. Teachers in
rural and remote schools can feel isolated and may require support through
mentoring, modeling and counseling (US Department of Education, 1998). Dealing
with this, precondition stage provides the participants to take part in
survival activities mentored by Indonesian Army members, and some activities
such as scouting and self counseling.
The follow up after having a year service in rural area, SM3T teachers have the chance to join Professional Teacher Education Program at the universities in which they initially registered. It is a full scholarship program supported by Directorate of Higher Education in the purpose to equip teacher candidates with advance knowledge and experiences in becoming professional teachers.
The follow up after having a year service in rural area, SM3T teachers have the chance to join Professional Teacher Education Program at the universities in which they initially registered. It is a full scholarship program supported by Directorate of Higher Education in the purpose to equip teacher candidates with advance knowledge and experiences in becoming professional teachers.
References
Beutel, D.,
Adie, L., & Hudson, S. Promoting
Rural and Remote Teacher Education in Australia through the Over the Hill
Project. Queensland University of Technology, Australia.
Diah, Riza A. K & Pradna, P.
2012. Resiliensi Guru di Daerah Terpencil.
Jurnal Psikologi Pendidikan dan Perkembangan. Vol I. No. 02.
Faridi, A. 2013. Method Used in
Teaching English at Junior High School in Central Java. Arab World English
Journal. June 2013. Pp 45-55
Guenther, J. & Weible, T.
1983. Preparing Teachers for Rural
Schools. Rural Education, Volume I, Number 2, Winter.
Hudson, Peter. 2008. Changing Preservice Teachers’ Attitudes for
Teaching in Rural Schools. Australian Journal of Teachers Education volume
33 issue 4 p.66-77.pdf
Kline, J., White, S., & Lock, G. (2013).
The rural practicum: Preparing a quality teacher workforce for rural and
regional Australia Journal of Research in Rural Education, 28(3),1-13.
Retrieved from http://jrre.psu.edu/articles/28-3.pdf
Ralph,
Edwin G. 2003. Promoting Teaching in
Rural School. 2003. Journal of Teaching & Learning, Vol 2 ., No. 2.Buku Panduan Prakondisi SM3T 2012
