ABSTRACT
The Ministry of Education and Culture has implemented a program of Sarjana Mengajar di daerah terluar, terdepan dan tertinggal (graduates educating in the frontier, outermost and disadvantaged regions), well known as SM-3T, since 2010. This program is a one-year social service program for rural and remote schools to prepare future professional teachers. The purpose of this study is to describe the SM-3T returned-participants’ perceptions of the influence of the program on their professional skills as teachers. This is a qualitative study for which data were collected through interview and documentation. The result of this study shows that the program has no significant influence on the participants’ professional skills in teaching. However, they think that the program influences participants’ personal, social and pedagogic competencies. They feel that the program made them tougher, more independent, and more caring to others. This study also reveals that the participants felt insufficient preparation for dealing with the challenges in the targeted regions (frontier, outermost, and disadvantage regions) so that they could not perform well and learn optimally during the program.
