Let’s Pay Teachers Enough to Afford the Country They’re Supposed to Save
Education is the first word in every campaign speech, the cornerstone of “Indonesia Emas 2045” visions, and the department we lovingly strangle each budget cycle. Because when push comes to shove, nothing says “strategic priority” like reallocating education funds to a conference center with a koi pond and five-star catering. “Children are the future,” we say, while asking a teacher with 40 kids in a classroom, a broken fan, and no whiteboard markers to somehow fix the country's PISA scores.
And now, against all odds, someone in the policy room whispered the unthinkable: What if we actually paid teachers well? Like, Rp 25 million a month well.
Cue the full emotional cycle: elation, nausea, disbelief. Suddenly, teachers would make more than a mid-level Telkomsel product manager or Instagram business coaches. Which naturally begs the national questions:
Can we afford this?
Closely followed by: “Wait, are we paying teachers more than we pay some politicians now?!
And: “Won’t everything else just get more expensive too, thus restoring teachers to their traditional place on the economic food chain: somewhere between Grab drivers and freelance content creators?”
It’s a revolutionary idea. Dangerous, even. Almost… rational.
High Pay, High Hopes, and Slightly Less Despair
Raising teacher salaries is a fantastic idea. It’s bold, it’s overdue, and it’s something we all agree should happen but somehow never quite does.
Right now, Indonesia’s teachers are underpaid, overextended, and treated like background extras in the national story. They’re expected to be educators, counselors, social workers, moral compasses, and sometimes stand-in parents, all for the kind of salary that barely covers a monthly motorbike installment. And then we wonder why the country’s math scores are in freefall. Maybe it’s because a guy with a master's degree is paid less than someone selling Cikiballs off a scooter with a sound system.
Passion matters. But passion doesn’t put groceries in the fridge or pay for the printer ink teachers are inexplicably required to buy themselves. No other profession is asked to run on passion alone. Doctors don’t operate “because they love cutting people open.” Engineers aren’t solving infrastructure for free.
So why do we keep acting like teachers should be grateful to live on purpose alone?
Imagine a system where ambitious, capable, talented people actively choose teaching, not because they’ve run out of options, but because it’s a career that commands respect, decent pay, and the dignity of not needing a side hustle.
Would paying teachers more magically fix everything? No. But it’s a start.
Okay, Dream Over: Who’s Paying for This?
Now that we’ve all enjoyed imagining well-paid, well-respected teachers educating a generation of high-performing, globally competitive Indonesians it’s time for some fiscal reality.
According to some napkin math, paying 3 million teachers Rp 25 million a month would cost more than Rp 900 trillion a year. For context, that’s not just more than the current entire education budget. That’s more than what’s left after everyone else has dipped their fingers into the national pot.
And just to rub it in: education spending has actually been cut recently. So yes, we’re floating the idea of tripling teacher salaries while many schools can’t afford whiteboard markers, and some textbooks still treat SBY as president.
And so, the obvious question: where does the money come from?
Raise taxes? Oh sure, the billionaires will love that.
Cut fuel subsidies? Please enjoy the immediate protests and burnt tires.
Fight corruption? Hmm. Let's put it right next to "world peace" on the to-do list.
Take on more debt? Nothing says visionary leadership like mortgaging your grandchildren’s future for today’s teacher raises.
This isn’t just a budgeting problem. It’s a priorities problem. We’ve got cash for stadiums, ceremonial drums, and sending 87 officials to a “digital transformation” conference in Geneva. But when it comes to teachers, suddenly there's collective amnesia and a deep respect for “fiscal restraint.”
What we need isn’t just more money. We need a budget that reflects what we actually value.
What Happens If It Actually Works (That’s the Scariest Part)
Let’s say the unthinkable happens. The government finds the money, the paperwork goes through, and suddenly, teachers across Indonesia are earning Rp 25 million a month. Just like that, a profession once viewed as noble-but-naïve becomes financially viable. Boom.
What next?
LPTKs (teacher colleges) would swell overnight. Forget YouTube fame or HR management. Now the smart kids want in on that sweet pedagogical payday.
Banks begin to wobble as teachers, once considered high-risk loan applicants, start qualifying for mortgages. Real estate agents blink in confusion as “Guru” appears on property buyer forms The middle class starts to include… teachers?
At family events, “Cuma guru ya?” becomes “Wah, guru!”
But utopia has a cost. Like clockwork, everyone else starts knocking on the same door: nurses, civil servants, firefighters, the guy who organizes kecamatan badminton tournaments. If one profession rises, why not all?
And then, inflation. That delicious ayam geprek? Now Rp 100k. Rents go up. Coffee becomes a luxury. The money looks good on paper but buys the same as before.
This is the conumdrum. When you elevate one group without addressing structural inequality, the system often responds by re-normalizing the imbalance elsewhere. Everyone shifts, but nobody actually moves up.
So, do we risk setting off an economic chain reaction just to give teachers a fair wage? Maybe. But maybe the bigger risk is assuming that equity must always come with collateral damage, and thus doing nothing at all.
The Right Idea, The Wrong System (Also: Still the Right Idea)
Raising teacher salaries is the right idea. Full stop. It’s not radical. It’s not utopian. It’s just long overdue. But it only works if the system it's injected into isn’t actively sabotaging itself.
Triple the pay without changing the underlying infrastructure, and what do you get? Not transformation, just better-paid mediocrity. Or worse, a class of financially comfortable but professionally stagnant educators, armed with the same outdated pedagogical tools from 1998.
What we need isn’t a quick injection of cash. It’s a slow-burn revolution.
Salaries phased over a decade, not overnight dopamine hits.
Merit-based increases tied to actual skills, not seniority or who’s closest to kepala sekolah.
Clean up teacher colleges, many currently operate like academic vending machines.
Pilot it province by province. Start where the data shows it's working. Reward performance, not proximity to Jakarta.
Real accountability, not death by paperwork, but mentoring, feedback, and support.
Yes, it's hard. Yes, it's political. Yes, it’s messy. But so is not doing it.
The alternative is what we have now: a system slowly cannibalizing its own future, where passionate people burn out, bright students avoid the profession, and we continue debating why 15-year-olds can’t do algebra while YouTubers make bank eating noodles in front of a ring light.
If we’re serious about transforming the country teacher pay is one area where the work begins. Not the flashy kind of reform that earns applause in Davos, but the kind that actually sticks. It’s slow, it’s unglamorous, and it won’t trend on Twitter unless someone turns it into a meme. But it’s the foundation. And without it, the rest is just noise.
Will it be expensive? Yes. Will it be messy, complex, and probably trigger a few heated WhatsApp group debates? Also yes. But if we’re not willing to fund the people responsible for raising national IQ levels, then let’s at least stop pretending we care about the future.
So, we say: pay the teachers. Pay them enough to stay, to thrive, to inspire. At minimum, pay them more than a junior brand manager in Jakarta.
And when someone inevitably asks, “But where will the money come from?”, just smile politely and point in the general direction of that Rp 500 billion pavilion that no one needed. Except this time, we're building something real.