Reconstructing Teacher Professional Education in Indonesia: From Competence Attributes to Clinical Practice

Abstract

Indonesia has invested heavily in teacher professionalisation for two decades, yet experimental evidence shows that a substantial unconditional professional allowance improved teacher welfare without measurable effect on student learning, raising the question of whether the preparation component is designed to develop teaching capability at all. This study aims to examine how legal and regulatory instruments construct professional competence, to compare the resulting programme design with evidence on effective preparation, and to formulate reconstruction feasible under national scale constraints. The research combines qualitative document analysis with normative juridical examination, analysing the National Education System Law, the Teachers and Lecturers Law, government regulations on teachers and national education standards, and ministerial regulation on teacher professional education, tested against scholarship on pedagogical content knowledge, practice-based preparation, and the teacher learning continuum. The findings show that competence is constructed as domains of attribute rather than descriptions of work, producing assessment that measures knowledge about teaching rather than capacity to teach; that the practicum is loosely coupled to coursework, organised around completion rather than mastery of identified practices, and supervised by mentors assigned without selection, preparation, or allocated time; and that the professional allowance functions as a recruitment condition rather than an improvement mechanism. The article recommends national specification of core practices, systematic mentor selection and preparation, partial performance assessment through recorded practice and prepared mentor judgement, and structured early-career induction.