by Alfath Bagus Panuntun El Nur Indonesia

Researcher, Center for Capacity Building and Networking FISIPOL, Gadjah Mada University

At the beginning of 2022, the Central Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Indonesia released the 2021 Human Development Index for Papua Province at 60.62 and for West Papua Province at 65.26.

Even though the achievements of the two provinces increased gradually, these two scores were still the worst in all of Indonesia.

After going through decades of conflict and violence, Native Papuans have the right to feel the presence of the country and enjoy a more dignified life. Development of human resources is now an urgent agenda.

Unfortunately, various studies have shown that the government’s strategy in the form of Special Autonomy (Otsus), infrastructure development, and regional expansion have not been able to overcome the complex problems of welfare. This strategy also has not overcome the stigma that is often aimed at native Papuans: “poor, sick, and uneducated”.

One of the more crucial social policies to improve human quality in Papua, namely education, still receives little attention.

The author conducted a study to map education and social mobility among native Papuans. This research involved respondents representing two different ecological zones: Mappi District (coastal) and Puncak District (mountains).

The results of the study show that the state is absent in education and human resource development in Papua on the coast, with conditions that are even worse in the mountains.

The absence of the state in education in Papua

The study conducted by the author shows that the state is absent through at least three aspects of education.

First, there is a wide gap related to the presence of quality teachers at various levels of education in Papua. According to the Regional Education Balance, the ratio of teachers and students in Papua from elementary to secondary levels in 2020 is actually ideal, namely 1:16. In other words, one teacher in Papua teaches about 16 students.

This is classified as better than ratios in other regions such as Maluku, Central Sulawesi and Central Kalimantan which are still more than 1:20. However, the fact is that only a few teachers are actually present at school.

In interviews with educators in the Puncak and Mappi districts, teaching and learning activities in the villages or districts still experience a shortage of teachers. Although the need for teachers in Papua is met, the distribution is uneven – most teachers are concentrated in urban areas such as Jayapura, Timika and Merauke.

Even though the presence of native Papuans is concentrated in villages or districts in mountainous and coastal areas such as the Puncak and Mappi districts. Most of these areas are also classified as rural areas and are very underdeveloped. In the end, the performance burden becomes unequal so that teachers in rural areas bear greater responsibility.

Second, even for teachers who attended, the proportion was more honorary teachers, compared to civil servant teachers who were usually of better quality. The irony is that the proportion of civil servant teachers is actually greater than honorary teachers at all levels of education.

A study from the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Indonesia shows the various reasons civil servant teachers give for their absence; starting from attending meetings or seminars, to carrying out activities that are not directly related to academic activities.

There are internal and external factors that make it difficult to ensure that teachers attend school. Internally, the commitment and quality of teachers in Papua is still quite low. Externally, Papua has also experienced many security disturbances, conflicts and wars. In this case, the state has not been able to provide a sense of security, and has failed to oversee the process of teaching and learning activities in schools and to evaluate teacher performance.

Third, there was a management error in the implementation of the scholarship granting policy in Papua.

For the last nine years, the Regional Government in West Papua Indonesia has been intensively creating educational scholarship programs for OAP at all levels. Unfortunately, the implementation of these various scholarship programs is not well monitored. The local government is only involved in the budgeting and disbursement process of scholarship funds, but neglects the monitoring and evaluation stages of scholarship holders.

The local government does not yet have a clear picture regarding strategic human resource mapping for Papua. As a result, scholarship recipients do not receive direction, or can act as they please during the scholarship. The results are predictable. Many OAPs end up having no skills when they graduate from school and college, or even have to drop out midway.

See Out of School Children in Papua Reach 314,606

Strengthen education services to increase social mobility

The state’s inability to overcome education inequality not only robs rights, but also threatens the survival of native Papuans. In various studies, education is believed to be a tool to help people move up economically. Strengthening education services is an effort to acknowledge and protect the existence of OAP. The Indonesian government must resolve the various root causes of education to show the Papuan people that the state exists for them.

First, the government must be better at identifying, recruiting, and placing skilled teachers from inside and outside West Papua, to support local teacher competence in West Papua.

Findings in the field show that local civil servant teachers make up a large portion of the personnel budget. But on the other hand, they are often absent to teach at school. In contrast, many honorary teachers from outside Papua teach, but receive little incentive.

The recruitment of these skilled teachers ideally involves a process of knowledge transfer, so that they can share learning methods or other good practices with local teachers. Skilled teachers should also be recruited on a contract basis, but with incentives commensurate with their performance.

Second, expanding the scope of affirmation scholarships for students from Papua. The Indonesian government needs to present more scholarships for native Papuans to the best schools and campuses both at home and abroad.

Currently, both the central and regional governments have education scholarship schemes through the state budget, provincial and district regional budgets, as well as special autonomy funds.

The provision of educational scholarship programs must be increased every year to provide broad opportunities for young talents from native Papuans. Likewise, reforming scholarship governance, especially monitoring and evaluation, must be carried out to overcome the problem of weak control over scholarship recipients.

Third, the Indonesian government must also not forget other factors that make the educational climate not conducive – including threats to safety and security for teachers and students in Papua.

Over the years, acts of violence and conflict in various regions of Papua have never ended, and instead have increased and spread evenly – from Maybrat, West Papua to Intan Jaya, Papua. Other research that we conducted showed that many basic service facilities, including education, became inactive and did not function due to social conflict. Through the various steps and considerations above to strengthen education services in Papua, the state can be present in the imagination and reality of the lives of native Papuans.