The quest for teacher education quality in Indonesia: The long and winding road

Teacher education in Indonesia graduates a large number of teacher candidates every year. However, due to discrepancies in the quality of the institutions, the preparedness and the quality of graduates remain a concern. The quality of teacher education in Indonesia is affected by several contextual factors such as policies, socio-economic, educational system and geographical challenges. This chapter provides an account to understand teacher education in Indonesia including historical background, concerns from the literature and some findings from a recent study exploring quality of teacher education which involve multiple stakeholders. The views of stakeholders including the Dean of Faculty Education, Head of Department, educators and student teachers were taken into account to get a balanced perspective regarding their concerns about education or teacher education in Indonesia. The findings show a variety of complex and complicated issues in teacher education as the result of challenges in the context, policies and educational system. The findings recommend evaluation on the effectiveness of teacher education and teacher professionalism training program and getting feedback from the stakeholders. The findings also indicate the importance of the pursuit of quality over the negotiation or compromise for political or economic purposes.