Indonesia's school system is the world's fourth largest. But the country is now struggling to provide enough teachers for its schools. The Education Ministry has created a new initiative that would eventually help train at least 100-thousand educators between 2018 and 2024. CGTN's Silkina Ahluwalia has more from Jakarta.

The Indonesian education system is huge and diverse. In a country of 260 million people, there are approximately 2.1 million teachers employed in more than 250,000 schools across the country.

The school system is the third largest in Asia with two ministries responsible for managing the entire system, The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

And according to them, Indonesia is facing a shortage of educators. The country needs an estimate of one million new teachers for state schools, beginning with 100,000 teachers this year.

M. WISNU AJI TEACHERS AND EDUCATION PERSONNEL DEPARTMENT, MINISTRY OF EDUCATION "We want to make sure that we find competent teachers. There needs to be proper tests and training for them to go through. Teachers need to be competent socially, personally and professionally. Currently, most of our teachers have not undergone extensive training and that is what we want to change, to help provide quality educators to everyone."

Over the past years, education has become a priority in the Indonesian government's development plan for the country. Education spending continues to increase every year.

M. WISNU AJI TEACHERS AND EDUCATION PERSONNEL DEPARTMENT, MINISTRY OF EDUCATION "This initiative will depend on the funding that we get from the government as well. With 100,000 teachers to be recruited, the government would have to provide a minimum of 60 million US Dollars for teachers' salaries across the country."

Experts say the problem is providing teachers in the outskirts of the country, where quality education remains crucial to the country's growth.

WEILIN HAN EDUCATION ANALYST "The amount of teachers in Java island or in big cities, there are more than enough, but then the number of teachers in remote areas, we have problems with that. It depends on whether they hire the right teachers, whether they select the right teachers, whether they provide the teachers education properly."

The government's priority is for Indonesia to reach its education potential in the next five years by improving the learning environment of schools and enhancing the quality of educators nationwide.

Silkina Ahluwalia, CGTN, Jakarta.