The impact of standards on novice teachers during mandated teaching induction: lessons from the Indonesian context

ABSTRACT

Standards-based induction is a nationally mandated support programme for newly appointed government-registered teachers in Indonesia. The Indonesian government continues to promote teacher standards in their teacher improvement scheme even though they have been criticised in the anglophone literature as a weak driver of teacher learning. This study investigated the impact of standards on novice-teacher learning during induction through the analytical lens of cultural-historical activity theory. Using a multiple case study approach, the data were collected from three elementary schools through interviews with novice teachers, mentors, and school principals as well as document analysis. The findings are that standards-based assessment has the potential to enable teachers to demonstrate the necessary competencies, but the learning process does not always work effectively in practice. This failure was due to the teachers’ lack of trust in the standards and the confusion created when they negotiated the different expectations placed upon them. The confusion stemmed from the clash between the standards and local community values, the fragmented strategy of introducing and implementing the specified measures, the top-down nature of the command structure and harmony-oriented working cultures.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher professional standards
• competencies
• novice teachers
• induction

Introduction

The Indonesian government’s enactment of a standards-based induction policy for the support and evaluation of novice teachers indicates the influence of standards-based reform in that country. Novice teachers’ performances are being evaluated in relation to the competencies expressed in the teacher professional standards. The contextualisation of the standards in the Indonesian educational system interacts with many other factors, which may have led to the government’s expectations on teacher quality not being met. This study aimed to extend the Anglophone literature to Indonesia by examining the challenges to novice teachers’ learning in the standards-based induction programme within that country.

Support for and concerns about the use of standards in induction programs

The burgeoning use of teacher professional standards in induction programmes indicates their increasing prominence as a regulation tool. The programmes are often linked to certification and licensure (Darling-Hammond, 2017). The standards are also used to identify the expected level of competence for entry into the profession or to measure novice teachers’ ongoing performances during induction (Sachs, 2016). However, the use of standards may create problems for novice teachers’ learning. First, the standards may increase the level of pressure on them, resulting in an experience that may not be conducive to either their professional or personal development (Mitchell et al., 2017). Second, there are also reservations about novice teachers’ responses to the standards. They often believe that their individual development conflicts with managerial structures that represent standards-based measurements (Allard & Doecke, 2014). If this happens, the teachers will only focus on achieving the standards to increase their status (Ryan & Bourke, 2013). The problematic ways of using such measures will likely reduce the standards’ ability to increase the quality of novice-teacher learning (Call, 2018). In relation to this, Mockler (2020) contends that standards foster a culture of conformity, which hinders teachers from actively participating in meaningful engagement with their teaching methods and inhibits their professional growth. Thus, teachers’ professional standards are not always effective in driving novice teachers’ learning (Lambert & Gray, 2020). As a result, a standards-based induction programme may inhibit rather than enhance the learning of novice teachers.

Standards-based induction policy in Indonesia

The provision of standards-based induction in Indonesia is part of a larger educational reform to improve teacher quality. The programme was mandated through a National Education Ministry Decree Number 27, Year 2010, piloted in some provinces in 2011, and implemented widely since 2013. The enactment of the programme indicates recognition of the need to address teacher problems in the first year of teaching, help them adapt to the environment and culture of the schools, and improve their professionalism (Ministry of National Education, 2012). Induction also fills the gap and increases the relationships between pre-service and in-service education programmes. The programme is divided into four stages which is illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Overview of the induction program in Indonesia.

Assessment is an important component of the induction programme and the results inform consideration for permanent employment and salary increase. The final decision is the result of agreement between school principal and district supervisor as the assessors. Successful completion of the programme requires novice teachers to satisfactorily demonstrate competencies outlined in the Teacher Professional Standards, which are also referred to as teacher competency. Table 1 describe the indicators of the competencies.

Table 1. Indicators of Competencies in Indonesian Teacher Professional Standards

Pedagogical Competency	Personal competency	Social Competency	Social Competency
1. Understand student characteristics.	1. Act consistently based on Indonesian national norms (e.g. religious, legal, social, and cultural)	1. Cooperative, objective and does not discriminate based on students’ characteristics and background.	1. Understand the core competencies of the curriculum, have strong subject knowledge and know how to teach the content.
2. Understand theory of education	2. Have good personality based on the norms.	2. Able to communicate with other teachers, school staff, parents, and members of society.	2. Engage in continuous professional learning and reflection on practice.
3. Able to develop curriculum.	3. Have strong commitment to the teaching profession and follow the ethical code of the teaching profession.
4. Able to plan and implement the instruction.
5. Able to evaluate students.
6. Able to identify and improve student potential.
7. Able to communicate with students

The standards represent the definition of a good teacher as expected by the government which are then used as a reference for supporting and assessing the quality of novice teachers.

Cultural factors were found to have strong influences on the use of standards in Indonesia. The communities’ beliefs and norms shape the ways teachers employ these measures in Indonesia. In fact, school principals were found to neglect, or modify, or interpret the standards to be more closely aligned with the school’s interpretation of a teacher’s quality (Atikah et al., 2013). These studies were not conducted in relation to induction programmes, yet there is a possibility that the cultural context also influences the use of standards in the induction programme and that it can become an obstacle to the effective use of standards to improve novice teachers’ learning.

Religious values also play an important role in Indonesian teachers’ conceptions of good teachers and their practices. The strong influence of Islamic values on teachers’ professional identities and their understanding of their responsibilities have been found in some studies in Indonesia (Qoyyimah et al., 2020; Usman et al., 2017). Islam views teaching as a noble activity that confers rewards in the afterlife. Teachers also have a special position within the society. Based on this religious belief, teachers should exhibit excellent individual classroom performances, adhere to Islamic teaching and uphold social responsibilities. In addition to the pedagogical competence, Islam requires teachers to practice the religious principles and to become the role model for their students. Teachers themselves are ordinary people who make mistakes, but they will have a higher position when they try to enjoin the good and forbid the bad according to the Islamic rules. Thus, teachers are expected to relate the subjects they teach to the process of building students’ noble characters as expected by Islam and the improvement of the society conditions.

Theoretical framework

Cultural Historical-Activity Theory (CHAT), which was developed from the work of Vygotsky, seeks to understand human beings and their interactions with their environments by analysing the structures and processes of their activities. In Engestrom’s third-generation model (Engestrom, 1987), the focus shifted towards exploring the interaction of diverse viewpoints among individuals and how each person’s thought processes unfold within their specific contexts. This is evident in the dynamics of their activity systems.

In this study, novice teachers’ learning processes were influenced by the interactions between different components within the novice teacher’s induction activity system as well as those of the mentor and the principal. Engeström’s (Engestrom, 1987) triangular model of human activity system provided the conceptual framework for developing the data collection instrument, the data collection processes and the data analysis. The elements of each individual activity system in the induction programmes were identified by asking the questions presented in Figure 2 below during the interviews.

Figure 2. Questions about the elements of an activity (adopted from Engestrom, 1987, p. 65).

Research design

This study used a multiple case study design to investigate how standards-based induction program influenced novice-teacher learning. This study was conducted in three elementary schools in Malang Regency, East Java Province, Indonesia. The three schools were selected as cases in the study because they had implemented an induction programme, the novice teachers had successfully completed the programme, and the mentors and principals involved in the induction programmes agreed to participate in the study. The three cases also represented the widest possible range of school contextual differences in location such as suburban and urban, and size such as small, medium and large. The school principal and mentor were included as participants because, according to the Induction Programme Guidelines, they were directly involved in the induction programme. Thus, the research participants in each case were three people comprising one novice teacher, one mentor and one school principal.

The data from the three cases were gathered in July and August of 2018 through semi-structured interviews and relevant documents. The data were collected after the completion of the induction programme and highlighted insights from a whole view of the participants’ experiences. The interview questions were reviewed by experts and revised based on the feedback from the participants in the pilot study. The interviewer, who is also the first author, had experienced teaching in an elementary school in the city and knew some of the participants. However, she was not directly related to the induction programme.

Personal impact and bias were minimised by developing an interview guide which reminded the interviewer of the aims and themes of the interview but also provided opportunities for dialogue. All principals were in their latter stage of their career and the mentors were mostly senior teachers who held important positions at their schools. The information disclosed by participants had the potential to affect their working relationships, so they were interviewed at different times and places to make them feel more comfortable to express their opinion. They were told that the interview data were confidential and would not be shared with anyone in the school organisation. The data were, however, shared and discussed with each participant to reduce researcher bias and misunderstanding.

Documentary evidence was collected from each school in the form of induction and assessment guidelines, records of observations and assessments of novice teachers, induction programme reports that recorded information about programme planning, implementation and evaluation results. Documents related to novice teachers’ activities during the induction programme, such as their lesson plans, media, PowerPoint presentations, teaching materials, teaching journals, certificates of participation in certain activities and certificates of achievement were also collected. Some of the documents were analysed to get the data on the participants’ conceptions of induction prior to their interviews. During the interviews, the documents were also used to help participants recount and reflect on their experiences and achievement of standards by directing their attention to the induction reports and assessment results.

In this multiple-case study, the analysis was conducted in two stages. First, in analysing the data within a single case, a thematic qualitative analysis was conducted before identifying the components of the activity system. The evidence from the document analysis was used to compare and contrast the evidence gathered from the analysis of the data from interviews. The unit of analysis in this study was the novice teachers’ experiences during induction programmes that were intended to achieve the standards. It comprised the joint-activity systems of the novice teacher, mentor and school principal that characterised the implementation of such programmes. Then, cross-case analysis was implemented to build an abstraction or general explanation that fitted all cases. The data from individual cases were analysed and reported before conclusions were drawn from the cross-case analysis.

Research findings

Rina’s experiences: distracted by the direct link of standards achievement with gaining a licence

Rina’s initial contact into the teaching context proved to be a profoundly difficult and emotionally exhausting task. Her astonishment stemmed from the terrible state of urban school environment and the formidable challenges posed by her students, who were hard to manage. It was apparent that a contradiction existed between her pedagogical ideals and the realities of the school. Most of her teaching plan did not work as expected because of the prevailing conditions of the school, students it served, and the circumstances of their parents.

The catalyst driving Rina’s professional trajectory was the direct links between adherence to established educational standards and the attainment of a permanent teaching licence. Her object was just to obtain permanent teaching licence, which would ensure job security and a higher salary: “This is a ticket to improved benefits ”. She expected to be able to move from the school not long after she received her permanent teaching licence.

As the induction programme progressed, Rina added a new object, that was, demonstration of teacher professional standards. The addition of a new object was mediated by strategies formulated by the principal and mentor in providing induction activities such as orientation, informal mentoring, observation feedbacks, and assessment. The induction activities were the tools in Rina’s activity system. The principal, mentor and superintendent, as the communities in her activity system, used the tools to motivate Rina to work harder in order to get the licence. However, the principal trusted that the standards represented teacher quality, which was necessary for the school to improve. Thus, the principal insisted Rina demonstrate the standards to be able to get her licence. The mentor also shared the principal’s view of the need to help novice teachers demonstrate the standards, therefore, conversation during mentoring was related to the strategies to improve teaching as expected by the standards. Thus, the standards were used as a rule in Rina’s activity system and strongly mediated the tools and communities. The standards were used as a reference and benchmark in the induction activities because of the principal adherence to induction guideline and the use of observation and assessment rubric.

Another rule in Rina’s induction activity system was her religious beliefs about teaching. Rina developed an understanding that teaching was more than a licence and career, but it was about sharing and doing good for others. As a Muslim, she knew that teaching was highly respected in Islam as long as the teacher sincerely acted for the good of the students.

I thought it was an Amal. It was my savings for the day of judgement. I was needed as a teacher here, at this school.

Rina used the word amal, meaning “good deed,” which is highly rewarded in the hereafter. Because she expected a reward from God in the after-life, she was less concerned about career enhancement, praise from parents and social judgement.

The beliefs caused Rina to reconceptualise the meaning of teaching during the induction which consequently changed her object from that of obtaining her permanent teaching licence only to the achievement of the shared goal with mentor and principal. The religious beliefs mediated her object and use of tools which in turn supported the formation of a shared object with her mentor and principal. The beliefs, which were strengthened by communities in her activity system, also became the cause of resolution of the contradiction between her ideal and actual school condition.

Rina’s religious beliefs, on the other hand, also led to contradictions between her and her induction communities. The communities’ perspective, which considered students’ academic performance as the primary indicator of learning success and aligned it with the teacher standards designed to facilitate students’ success in academic tests, stood in contrast to Rina’s views. She frequently found herself irritated by the comments from her colleagues in the Teachers’ Working Group, as she explained,

The government, superintendent, and some teachers from other schools often assessed our competencies based on our ability to help students achieve high marks in examinations.

Rina firmly believed that students’ growth and development should be evaluated based on their improvement in life skills, attitudes, and adherence to religious principles. She expressed,

I find satisfaction in witnessing the growth of my students. Previously, many of them did not practice basic hygiene, such as bathing, using shampoo, or maintaining dental hygiene. Some even became involved with undesirable groups and dropped out of school. I took it upon myself to teach them the importance of personal hygiene, instil positive behaviour, and encourage further education. It brings me great joy to see them exhibit good behaviour, continue their education, and refrain from joining negative influences. Assessing students’ growth should not be limited to their scores and grades alone.

The disparities between Rina’s criteria for evaluating students’ growth and the assessment criteria delineated in the standards introduced a sense of dilemma. Nevertheless, the majority of Rina’s induction communities collaborated in their efforts to exert influence over her. Recognising the prevailing expectations and the significance accorded to the teacher standards, Rina conscientiously attempted to navigate a path that would harmonise her personal beliefs with the prevailing standards. She embarked on a mission to achieve the teacher standards as her primary object and engaged with the communities with the explicit aim of getting assistance to demonstrate these standards, while steadfastly retaining her core beliefs. The relationship between their activity systems is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Joint activity systems and outcomes of Rina’s case.

Rina’s assessment report showed an improvement in all domains of the competencies. During the assessment, the principal and mentor judged that she had changed her teaching practices, acquired new knowledge, modified her existing beliefs and attitudes about teaching, and sustained the changes throughout the induction programme. The report also claimed that she developed individual attributes, such as open-mindedness, adaptability, and better communication with students, teachers, and parents which would be important for her future career.

The shared object on the need of demonstrating standards had the potential to improve the quality of Rina’s learning but this cannot be assured due to the contradictions between the novice teacher and the principal. The principal emphasised the importance of the permanent teaching licence in front of Rina who responded to the principal’s expectations by modifying her behaviour to pass the assessment. As the principal reported,

The only obstacle during induction was that she was not open with me. She did not tell me her problems in the classroom every day (during the program). I was so surprised and a bit disappointed (after the program ended). It was maybe because she wanted to pass the induction program; therefore, she only mentioned the good things in front of me.

After the programme ended, the principal questioned the authenticity of Rina’s behaviour during induction due to the government licencing scheme, which she used as a rule in her activity system. However, Rina attributed the problem to the principal’s approach:

The school principal warned me not to extend the Teacher Induction Program to the second year … The message I got was, “you have to pass the program.

This contradiction suggests that the results of the principal’s assessment can be brought into question as to whether they truthfully reflected the actual competencies of the novice teacher. Reflecting on her achievement, Rina only emphasised the importance of induction to make her more open-minded and adaptive to change because she become used to being evaluated. Thus, Rina’s learning cannot be guaranteed, even though she passed the induction programme successfully and reported that she satisfactorily demonstrated the standards.

Heni’s experiences: being forced to negotiate the standards, school orientation and her own values

Heni’s object of participating in induction programme was related to the improvement of pedagogical competencies, which is only one of the aspects of teacher quality expected in the teacher professional standards. Her object was influenced by her own definition of effective teaching and previous experience of teaching in non-formal education. The tools Heni used in her activity system, such as observation, mentoring, assessment, and school principal supports were oriented to the increase of her teaching effectiveness, as she had expected. However, they did not contribute significantly to improving her competencies as expected by the standards because standards were not used as reference by the principal, mentor, and assessor as her community.

Her religious beliefs about teaching and qualities of good teacher provided a strong foundation for her learning during induction. Her religious beliefs, as one of her tools, shaped her way of using other tools such as observation, assessment, and mentoring. She mentioned that teaching “is the manifestation of worshipping God” . Heni believed that teaching was a noble activity and that she had to perform it with great commitment. Having such commitment meant taking the job seriously. Heni strongly held this religious belief yet perceived the teacher professional standards as overly limited in their scope, resulting in the oversight of various aspects of teaching excellence rooted in Islamic principles. Thus, she used the tools to develop complex attributes of an expert teacher based on her own definition which contradict school principal’s object and ways of using the tools.

The school principal’s object, achieving high student academic performance in the national examination and becoming top-ten school in the district, was used as a rule in Heni’s activity system. The rule determined the ways in which the tools were used by the communities. The principal and mentor focused more on increasing the teacher’s personal well-being and adopted a narrow definition of professionalism based on pedagogical competencies, which supported the achievement of the school goal. Therefore, the use of tools was directed towards achieving the school expectation instead of supporting the novice teachers to demonstrate the competencies expected by the standards.

Other rules in Heni’s activity system were government expectation of a good report and paperwork, and school norms regarding instructional practices, grading and student achievement. The rules contradicted Heni’s efforts to use her tools to obtain her object. As a result, her learning during induction did not make a substantial contribution to her competency improvement, although she had good interaction with the community and had positive and enjoyable learning experiences. Her interaction with principal, mentor, and group of peer novice teachers only facilitated her to build her professional identity as defined by the school and to draw her out of isolation.

In term of division of labour, Heni also experienced dual roles which created contradiction within her activity system. As an inductee, she was expected to participate in the formal induction programme in her school. At the same time, she was also expected to meet the school’s expectation to increase students’ scores and the local government’s criteria of a completed induction report.

The demonstration of standards was not used as a shared object between the principal, mentor and Heni. The local government failed to identify whether the central government’s object had been met and whether the components of the induction activity system had worked towards the achievement of the standards. The principal narrowed down the definition of a teacher’s quality and professionalism to pedagogical competencies only. The concept of quality she conveyed to Heni did not reflect the government’s definition, which was to demonstrate the standards. The principal’s object influenced the choice made by a mentor who accepted the principal’s expectations of the mentoring process and other induction-activity-based goals. The mentor’s obedience to the school principal reflected the existence of a leader-centred culture/working relationship.

The joint-activity systems and outcomes in Heni’s case are presented in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Joint activity systems and outcomes in Heni’s case.

In this case, induction was a contest between Heni’s efforts to obtain her object and the school’s efforts to share their expectations. Despite the government’s mandate regarding the utilisation of the standards, Heni missed opportunities to develop competencies because of the strong influence of the school’s goal.

The outcome, Heni felt that she had considerably improved her pedagogical competencies, such as the ability to understand students’ characteristics and background, improve students’ engagement in the lessons, and assessment skills. It is evidenced by the improvement in her students’ academic achievements. ‘The national examination results say it all. It can be seen by the parents. However, she felt that she did not fully demonstrate the overall skills expected by the standards: “I think I didn’t improve much throughout induction”, although she explained that the use of standards made her aware of the government’s expectations of the achievement of standards. She felt she did not improve her personal, social, and professional competencies. A further consequence is Heni’s lack of trust about the ability of the standards to improve her learning experience.

Dina’s experiences: Facing the conflicting motives of the national government, the local government and school orientation.

Dina taught in an elementary school located in an industrial area where students’ parents mostly worked as industrial labourers or in other low-paid jobs. The less disadvantaged students tended to be easily managed which made her first teaching experience at the school smooth and enjoyable. The school was also very supportive towards students and teachers.

The object of Dina’s participation in the induction programme was just to complete the programme and obtain her permanent teaching licence. “I thought about how to finish the program. Meet the obligation. Get the permanent licence.” Dina saw competence improvement and licencing as competing purposes.

The community’s poor understanding of their responsibilities and lack of awareness of the teacher professional standards inhibited the development of Dina’s competencies. The principal was not fully involved in the induction activities and chose not to become better informed. As a result, he worked to achieve an object which could actually be achieved without the programme. The mentor was the most influential community member that had more direct influences on Dina, but she did not refer to the standards in using the tools. The mentor and school principal helped Dina to pass the assessment not by encouraging her to progress towards standards but by subjectively marking her works. In other word, the community did not provide activities and resources that helped Dina to demonstrate the expected competencies.

Dina’s difficulties in demonstrating the standards was also caused by the contradiction between rules in her activity system. While the national government’s goal in induction was to improve novice teacher competencies as expected by the standards, the local government’s purpose was to apply an administrative system to the recruitment of new teachers, as Dina explained, “I was expected to meet with the superintendent to get his signature and that was it.” Being uninformed, the school principal responded passively to the government’s mandate. He compelled Dina to fit in with the school’s culture and norms, which reflected unwritten criteria regarding teaching quality derived from cultural and religious beliefs. The school principal said,

I consistently emphasized to both senior and junior teachers the imperative of collaboration. I stressed the importance of aligning our efforts with our national and cultural values, encapsulated in the principle of “Gotong Royong.” I advocated for a cooperative approach rather than fostering competition among us. Our work was to be appraised collectively, valuing the contributions of the entire group.

Contrastingly, the school principal perceived the teacher standards as guiding the assessment of teacher competence towards a more individualistic paradigm of performance evaluation.

The forces affected how the principal and mentor used the induction activities as tools in their activity systems. The mentor used the observation forms provided in the induction guidebook, but she relied on her own understanding which reflected the views of the school principal and cultural values and norms. The mentor also lacked the necessary skills to use the standards. Thus, the communities worked individually based on their needs and interests which also contradicted with the rules in Dina’s activity system.

In this case, Dina faced three conflicting motives: accommodating the local government’s requirement of accomplishing the administrative tasks which she used as rule in her activity system, the school’s and mentor’s beliefs of a qualified teacher which were manifested in their objects, and the government’s expectation of demonstrating competencies according to the standards. The contradiction required Dina to modify her overall performance during the process. Her decision to adopt the object of the local government, i.e., to use the standards for administrative purposes, but also to adopt the school’s community norms and values in some areas resulted in dissatisfaction with the government’s linking of induction with the licencing system: “I don’t think we need to be motivated by the licence.”The joint-activity system is presented in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Joint activity systems and outcomes in Dina’s case.

The results of the analysis showed that the joint activity system did not have a shared object. The subjects in each activity system worked towards a different object, which was based on the socio-historical background of the subject’s involvement in the activity. Dina felt that her object of obtaining her permanent teaching licence had been achieved, but she was not satisfied with the demonstration of her competencies. On the other hand, the school principal and mentor were happy with the outcomes of the induction activities, though each used different criteria to evaluate the outcomes.

The failure of standards to improve novice teachers’ learning

The study’s findings showed that novice teachers’ respective demonstrations of standards did not guarantee their substantial learning practices throughout the induction process. Both induction support providers at the school level and novice teachers themselves doubted the authenticity of their learning during the process of demonstrating the standards. The findings provide evidence regarding concerns that professional teaching standards are not always effective in driving forward the quality of novice-teacher learning (Lambert & Gray, 2020). Although the standards have the potential to increase learning, it cannot be as easily achieved as the policymaker asserts. The novice teachers’ confusions in negotiating different demands reduced their trust in the standards’ ability to improve their practice. They perceived that their learning processes had been limited by conflicting interests, and they were dissatisfied with the development of their competencies. These processes create inherent tensions in the form of compliance cultures, which Mockler (2020) contended would not effectively facilitate teachers in meaningfully engaging with their practices and advancing their professional development.

The failure of the measures to increase the quality of novice teachers’ learning, which has been a concern in the Global North where the standards-based movement originated, also occurred in the Indonesian context. In addition to the problems that have been found in the West, including the increasing pressure placed on novice teachers (Allard & Doecke, 2014; Mitchell et al., 2017) and their compliance (Call, 2018), there are other difficulties that are faced by novice teachers in Indonesia, which resulted from the political and socio-cultural aspects of the context. The elements are the clash between the standards and local community values, the fragmented strategy of introducing and implementing the specified measures, the top-down nature of the command structure and the harmony-oriented working cultures.

Clash between standards and the community concept of good teachers

The principals’ and the mentors’ ambiguous responses towards the standards indicate their lack of acceptance of these professional gauges. The standards-based induction programme is intended to be a tool to introduce the concept of qualified teachers as they are expected to be by the national government (Ministry of National Education, 2012), but those at the school level viewed standards as part of an externally driven process of management-oriented reform. The view that standards are an external evaluation tool is one of the problems that Pedaste et al. (2019) argue reduces the measures’ ability to drive the processes related to learning. The school principals’, mentors’ and novice teachers’ responses in our research seemed to be like those in other jurisdictions where many were reluctant to accept the standards because they viewed them as a form of regulatory control (Adoniou & Gallagher, 2017). However, in the Indonesian context with its top-down working culture, teachers’ reluctance to accept these standards cannot be easily recognised. Their positions regarding the standards were never clearly revealed in public. The principals, mentors and novice teachers never questioned the national government’s expectations of using the measures. Nevertheless, they did not use the standards as a reference point during the provision of support and assessments.

The Islamic faith represents a distinct set of values that exert a significant impact on teachers, aligning with the outcomes observed in prior research (Qoyyimah et al., 2020; Usman et al., 2017) indicating that Islamic values strongly shape teachers’ professional identities and their perception of their duties. The new teachers believed that teaching is a noble activity that confers rewards in the afterlife. Based on this religious belief, teachers should exhibit excellent individual classroom performances, adhere to Islamic teaching and uphold social responsibilities. Thus, the indicators for the pedagogical, personal, social, and professional competencies need to be in line with Islamic values. However, these values, which have strong roots in the educational context of Indonesia, have not been factored into the development of the standards.

Failure to fully appreciate the significance of Islamic beliefs can potentially engender conflicts in the execution of standards-based induction policies. The reluctance of teachers to embrace these standards does not always stem from a genuine incongruity between the ideals embodied in the teacher standards and the notions of excellence in teaching upheld by both school communities and novice teachers. Rather, it sometimes emanates from a misinterpretation of the standards. Both senior and novice teachers’ hesitancy towards standards-based reforms, often caused by the attributes of standards to the broader global trends of standardisation, measurement, and accountability mechanisms within the educational field. Paradoxically, the teachers’ concept of what constitutes teacher excellency is rather standards-based and adheres to a top-down paradigm. However, they opposed the teacher professional standards developed by the Indonesian government due to its lack of grounding in religious values and cultural norms.

Islamic beliefs, as the dominant religious influence among the participants, introduce a clear dichotomy between right and wrong. According to Islamic tenets, standards should not be arbitrarily crafted by individuals but should emanate from divine sources. Consequently, teachers exhibit a willingness to adhere to values endorsed by religious doctrine, and they do not object to authoritative imposition of these values. This tacitly implies an acceptance of top-down directives, provided that the content of the standards aligns harmoniously with their religious convictions.

In essence, if standards are formulated with a conscientious acknowledgement of the social and religious values that underpin teachers’ perceptions of effective teaching and what constitutes a virtuous teacher, it is conceivable that such standards could be easily held by teachers. This alignment between standards and the deeply ingrained beliefs of the teachers has the potential to eliminate any preconceived biases against standards, fostering bigger chances for acceptance and successful implementation.

The implementation of standards-based reform should encompass more than merely aligning with the worldwide trend of delineating the quality of a teacher. Drawing upon Biesta and Stengel’s (Biesta & Stengel, 2016) arguments, the oversight regarding the recognition of teachers’ perceptions of effective teachers stems from the emphasis on students’ learning achievements and outcomes. However, this research suggests that it is important to consider the contextual factors at play, such as religious beliefs and cultural norms, which exert a strong influence on teachers’ conceptualisations of excellence in teaching. These factors demand accommodation and integration into the process of defining standards to ensure a more comprehensive and culturally sensitive approach.

Fragmented strategy of introducing and implementing standards

The failure of the principals, mentors and novice teachers to achieve a shared object revealed the fragmentation of standards-based policy orientation of those at the higher level. The local government is expected by the national government to implement policy practically. However, the former’s inability to acknowledge the latter’s expectations led them to shift the focus of the programme towards administrative functions. Policy-making, legislation and implementation is never a linear process (Biesta et al., 2021). Although the top-down policy enactment process within the Indonesian context demanded that those from the lower level adhered to their more senior, local governments may also operate in a complex field that involves competing interests and priorities. The involvement of various stakeholders in the conceptualisation of policy did not prevent misinterpretation and variations of approaches across the disparate levels (Nielsen et al., 2020). This means that miscommunication may occur in all contexts but the risk maybe higher if the local government is not invited to join in with the policy-design process.

The direct link between the achievement of the standards and obtaining a licence was shown to potentially distract the local government into emphasising the importance of the licence. The use of teacher professional standards during induction is often claimed to successfully support the broader educational reform of teaching-based preparation, licencing, certification, evaluation, and ongoing professional development in the United States (Darling-Hammond, 2017). Nevertheless, in such contexts, these measures are widely accepted by a majority of states for use in their induction programmes to provide a framework for novice teachers’ professional development and as criteria against which they can be assessed (Bales, 2015). Meanwhile, in a situation where the standards conflict with the people’s ideas about teacher quality and they are misinterpreted by the local government, the advocacy for the effectiveness of standards for supporting the appraisal and benefit system cannot be backed up with supplementary evidence. The licence become another motive that fosters confusion and difficulties in relation to teachers.

Top-down command and the power relationship

The study’s results showed that the authority of the principal was a robust determining factor on whether standards informed the work of mentors and novice teachers in each case study. The principal’s lack of understanding of the professional measures resulted in the mentor’s and the novice teacher’s failure to use them in their interactions. The school principal’s power to shape the induction process was not unexpected in the Indonesian context as the culture is characterised by top-down-based policies and chains of command. The principals’ responses to the standards meant that the gauges did not substantially change professional development practices within their schools. As a result, the induction programmes were insufficiently informed by the professional teaching standards, and the principals unintentionally encouraged novice teachers to practice in accordance with cultural values and norms. Their compliance might have led them to deviate from the policy’s expectations, which Brücknerová and Novotný (2019) argue contributes to the construction of a hidden curriculum within the induction programme. It may narrow the interpretation and practice of using standards and create confusion among teachers.

The findings also underscore the principals’ reluctance to challenge the government policy mandate, even though they did not see the policy itself as relevant to the school’s goal. They did not demonstrate agency by rejecting the induction policy, nor did they connect the standards with other expectations for their schools or use them to help teachers to improve students’ academic outcomes. Similarly, the results of an investigation into the development policy relating to elementary-school teachers in Yogyakarta, Indonesia illustrated that teachers and members of the teachers’ union saw the introduction of standards as part of the local government’s effort to strengthen its political position, and they felt powerless to oppose it (Rohman, 2019). Arguably, the principals’ lack of agency was influenced by the political dimensions of educational structures and commands.

Harmony-oriented working culture

Collectivist cultures that value interpersonal harmony may also hinder school communities from taking opportunities to advance novice-teacher learning. These findings represent an original contribution to the literature on induction in the Asian context where trust and harmony are frequently held up as desirable goals of collaboration during induction programmes (Hallinger et al., 2017). The collectivist values and trust among the induction support providers, the community and novice teachers are an asset for the programme’s successful implementation, but they also pose some unintended risks for the learning process.

The community’s lack of understanding of the need to use the standards made it difficult for teachers to access activities that would help them progress towards these professional standards. The community may have provided activities and resources that helped novice teachers to achieve their objects, but support was not always available to help them demonstrate the expected competencies. The lack of a shared object in the joint activity system of the principal, mentor and novice educator meant that the responsibility to provide activities and resources to help novice teachers demonstrate the expected competencies was not fulfiled. In such cases, community engagement largely failed to help them achieve the standards, even though they participated in collaborative practices. In fact, it is difficult for novice teachers to associate these activities with their demonstrations of the expected competencies. The findings of the current study support those from other investigations that community support also facilitated teachers’ professional dialogue and collaborative engagement by drawing on their common knowledge and relational expertise (Nguyen & Dang, 2020). This is understandable as novices’ perceptions of workload manageability have been shown to be influenced by their interactions with colleagues and the culture of collective responsibility in schools (Bettini et al., 2018). Shared obligations contributed to each of the novice teachers’ abilities to showcase the standards by providing additional sources of instructional interactions with colleagues.

Conclusion

The evidence from this study point to problems relating to the developmental and enactment process of the standards-based induction policy. The perception of standards as an external tool that is misaligned with the local Indonesian environment and teachers’ values reduces the benefits of the measures to increase teacher learning. Such an approach contrasts with the professional standards movement where clear measures for teachers’ learning and criteria to increase their status provide strong drivers for reform within the profession (Darling-Hammond, 2017). The conflict between teachers’ own positionality, including their values and structural or sociocultural factors, emerged as a source of numerous problems within this analysis of the topic.

The study’s findings provide empirical evidence in relation to the challenges associated with translating standards-based induction into practice in the non-Western context. The use of standards as part of the reform oriented towards reducing the top-down culture cannot be successfully achieved due to lack of readiness of the school communities and the conflict with social, managerial and local cultural values and practices. Furthermore, they support the argument that teacher professional standards are not always effective in driving the improvement of quality (Lambert & Gray, 2020). It was difficult for the principals, mentors and novice teachers in this research to reach an agreement about novice-teacher development. In part, this was because their views reflected the ideological contest between religious and community-based values and standards in the Indonesian context. These findings indicate the need for the national government of Indonesia to reconsider their employment of the measures or to revise the teacher professional standards, so they reflect the definition of a good teacher that is held by teachers and wider society. There is also a need to alter the practices of national government, local government and induction providers at the school level to minimise the obstacles faced by novice teachers. As the main policy-maker, the national government should create conditions to support relevant changes within its local counterpart and in relation to schools’ practices.

This study, which focuses on novice teachers’ induction experiences in Indonesia, may also inform a much broader context. The results could increase our understanding of novice teachers’ learning experiences in other countries, which are characterised by top-down policy-making and collectivist cultural values as is the case in Indonesia. The findings also provide a useful extension to the Anglophone literature in relation to the influence of contextual factors on novice teachers’ learning, which needs to be better understood to improve programme-related efficacy.

Ethics statement

This study was undertaken with ethical clearance from the University of New South Wales number #HC180254.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Indonesian Endowment Fund for Education for the financial support that enabled this research to be conducted.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tatik Tatik

Tatik Tatik is a recent graduate of the University of New South Wales with a research focuses on induction, mentoring, and teacher professional learning experiences

Hoa Nguyen

Hoa Thi Mai Nguyen is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of New South Wales, specialising in teacher education/development, mentoring, TESOL and sociocultural theory

Tony Loughland

Tony loughland is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of New South Wales. His research interests lie in teacher professional learning across the continuum from graduate to lead teacher.