Endless struggle and hope for the education of Papuan children
Muhamad Rosyid Jazuli — February 2022
Many formidably agree that quality and equal access to quality education is vital to developing a community. To some areas in Indonesia, be it in Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi, Papua, etc., this is an endeavor that many have fought for. They have no time or may have run out of it to tinker with pessimistic or cynical narratives, blaming any problem on anybody or any organization they could find. And instead, they let their moves be hands-on onto reality and take real actions to tackle this problem.
Education for kids in Papua, especially those in remote areas, is indeed rare. In the West, education has been well-known as the government’s primary, if sole, responsibility, as it is one of the essential services the people are rightful to get. As of the lack of quality education and its rare accessibility, some soon point the blame on the government. The mainstream narrative is that the government is evil and busy with indoctrinating the Papuan kids.
Some, fortunately, do not buy that way of thinking. These people have chosen to understand that their government is not perfect, and it never will. The fact that Indonesia is still young and developing pushes them to realize that they should act too as part of the civil society. Indonesia is not the West.
These people are volunteer teachers who have dedicated the best time of their lives to teaching kids in remote areas in Papua. Their formidable commitment to the future of their Papuan, not just fellow, but family, is what has brought them to Papua.
Diana, Anggi, Adit and Putri: stories of dedication and love for Papua
As reported by Kompas.com (2020), for Diana Cristian Da Costa Ati, a Teacher Driver for Remote Areas (GPDT), teaching in the interior of Papua is beyond just a normal, professional job. A teacher at SD Inpres Kaibusene, Haju District, Mappi Regency, Diana receives a salary of IDR 4 million per month. A decent salary it is indeed.
However, she has to rent a small boat to go to Haju District to take the money. The question may be, why still take it in cash? Her salary should be quickly spent to buy drinking water, kerosene, and fuel as those goods’ prices are high due to the lack of infrastructure. They cannot drink the normal water from their swampy area as it would poison them.
Apart from such difficulties, Diana enjoys her time and dedication to teach the Papuan kids there. What she has done firmly resonates with Anggi Crestamia’s (29) endeavor. As reported by DW (2020) Anggi was a Young Educator (PM) from the Indonesia Mengajar Foundation who lived in Papua to teach elementary school (SD) children there.
During her time teaching there, Anggi, was one of six young teachers from Indonesia Mengajar distributed to six placement locations in the Yapen Islands, Papua. Anggi was assigned to serve at YPK Baithel Rondepi Elementary School in the Ambai Islands District, Yapen-Papua Islands.
Anggi and her volunteer teacher friends stayed with house fams, mostly Papuan people willing to be their parents while actively teaching. To get to the Yapen Islands, Anggi admitted that she had to go through a long journey. “From Java, the plane may transit twice, approximately eight hours, from Java to Makassar, transit again from Makassar to Biak,” she told as reported by DW.
Meanwhile, from Biak, the journey must then be resumed by using a small plane or fast boat with a travel time of approximately 6 hours. Indeed, what a trip!
During the pandemic, the local government’s ‘lockdown’ policy made schools in Yapen Regency implement a learning system from home. According to Anggi, fortunately, there are several schools, especially those in Serui, that had been exposed to internet signals so that they were able to carry out the online teaching and learning process using WhatsApp or Google Meet.
Meanwhile, for schools located in districts where most of them had not been exposed to enough signal reception and electricity, Anggi said Radio was one of the media that could help the teaching and learning process even though it could not reach all the placement villages of these young teachers.
The stories of Anggi and Diana above show how quality education and its accessibility in Papua is indeed continuously fought for. This is in total opposite of some narratives that this region is purposefully left behind and systematically oppressed (only those who are evil-minded or have never been to Papua would think so, I believe). And, of course, these stories are not alone. Here is the story of Adit and Putri, who Kompas TV recently interviewed.
Adit and Putri are a couple who have dedicated their lives to teach in the remote areas in Papua for the past several years. They created an initiative called Kawan Kasih Tumbuh (To Friend, To Love, To Grow) and have been teaching in Papua since 2012.
From their experience, they learned that it is indeed a big task ahead for establishing quality education in Papua. For the fundamental approach, they keep working hard on growing the interest of the kinds to education. Because, no matter what the approach (they call it ‘religion’) of the education, if the kids and the community do not know the value of education, it would be hard to generate outcomes from any endeavor they undertake.
For them, it takes a great loyalty to the growth and future of the Papuan children for teachers to teach in remote areas in Papua, as they said during the interview with Kompas TV. Of course, the lack of infrastructure is a big problem as mentioned by Anggi and Diana. However, if there is a strong call or zest in the persons to help teach there, then such a hurdle would not matter much.
Stability and optimism
To this end, the stories of Diana, Anggi, Adit, and Putri show that hope is there, and it is there firmly: that quality education in Papua is progressing, and in the end, it will be there. What is needed is to spread these positively optimistic and motivating stories as broadly as possible. In that way, those who are dedicated to teaching kids in remote areas would be exposed to such spirit and willing to help. It is hoped that more and more dedicated teachers will come and stay in Papua.
Of course, structural support is essential. National and local governments need to be more hands-on by providing better physical access to these remote areas. This endeavor would ensure that the incoming teachers would not be worried about lacking necessities such as food and water. In that sense, they would have tremendous energy for teaching and creating innovative programs and approaches to help with better education exposure to the Papuan kids.
Lastly, Papua needs to have stability socially and politically. It is unfortunately notorious that Papua is considered unsafe. This situation arguably deters people from going there. It is worsened by many negative, false, and pessimistic news pieces about Papua, making Papua worse off looking.
Continuous dialogs between, say, the ruling administrations, national and local, and local figures are crucial. The spirit of these dialogs is to allow the region to have much better generations to come, as those fighter teachers’ energy above. Also, it is necessary to continue for many parties to amplify the good news from Papua like the teachers’ stories above so that optimism and assistance from both national and foreign keep emerging and flowing in, allowing more positive endeavors to realize.(*)
This piece fully represents the writer’s idea. It does not express any ideas or stances of specific institutions or organizations he works at or is affiliated with.
