PAUD Teacher Qualifications: What the 2025 Rules Changed

What changed for PAUD staffing on 29 October 2025?

The regulation your staffing decisions rest on was replaced. Peraturan Menteri Pendidikan Dasar dan Menengah Nomor 21 Tahun 2025 tentang Standar Tenaga Kependidikan was signed in Jakarta on 29 October 2025 by Minister Abdul Mu'ti, and its Pasal 21 lists twelve earlier ministerial regulations that are revoked and declared no longer in force. Huruf k of that list is Permendikbud Nomor 137 Tahun 2014 tentang Standar Nasional Pendidikan Anak Usia Dini.

That is the regulation almost every Indonesian article about PAUD staffing still quotes. It was not amended and it was not partially superseded. It was revoked in full, and the replacement was issued under Peraturan Pemerintah Nomor 57 Tahun 2021 as amended by Peraturan Pemerintah Nomor 4 Tahun 2022.

Pasal 2 ayat (1) splits the new standard into a standard for Pendidik and a standard for Tenaga Kependidikan selain Pendidik. The first is a hiring rule. It says what a person must hold before they count as an educator at your centre, and it is blunter than what it replaced.

The three tiers your handbook describes were revoked

Under the old regulation, Pasal 24 ayat (2) divided early-childhood educators into three tiers. A guru PAUD, under Pasal 25 ayat (1), needed a D-IV or S1 in early childhood education, a relevant education field or psychology from an accredited study programme, plus a sertifikat Pendidikan Profesi Guru PAUD. A guru pendamping, under Pasal 26 ayat (1), could hold either that degree or a D-II PGTK.

The third tier mattered most in practice. Pasal 27 ayat (1) allowed a guru pendamping muda to hold a Sekolah Menengah Atas ijazah plus a PAUD training, education or course certificate from a competent government body. That single article is why a KB or TPA could lawfully staff a room with a trained caregiver who had finished school and taken a course.

All three articles went with the regulation. The tier names, the D-II PGTK route and the SMA route appear nowhere in the standard that replaced them. If your staff handbook or your job adverts still use the phrase guru pendamping muda, they describe a category that no longer exists in law.

Who counts as an educator under the new standard?

Pasal 3 ayat (2) sets out eight categories of Pendidik: guru, konselor, tutor, instruktur, Pendidik pada jalur pendidikan nonformal, fasilitator, Pendidik PAUD, and Pendidik under another name suited to their speciality. Which one applies to you turns on a distinction the old regulation did not lean on.

Pasal 4 ayat (1) puts guru on the formal path, covering PAUD, primary education and secondary education. Pasal 4 ayat (7) puts Pendidik PAUD at nonformal PAUD centres.

A TK, being formal PAUD, staffs its rooms with guru. A Kelompok Bermain, a Taman Penitipan Anak or a Satuan PAUD Sejenis staffs its rooms with Pendidik PAUD. The same formal and nonformal line decides whether the school safety rules that replaced the TPPK reach your centre.

Either way, Pasal 5 ayat (2) says the qualification is proved by an ijazah, or by an ijazah together with a Sertifikat Kompetensi, while Pasal 5 ayat (3) sets four competencies for every Pendidik, pedagogical, personal, social and professional. Competence is assessed. The qualification is documentary, and someone can ask to see it.

What qualification does each role need now?

For a guru, Pasal 6 ayat (1) requires at least a bachelor's degree or a four-year diploma from a higher-education institution and a study programme that are both accredited, and a sertifikat pendidik. Both conditions, not either.

For a tutor, a Pendidik pada jalur pendidikan nonformal, a fasilitator and a Pendidik PAUD nonformal, Pasal 6 ayat (3) requires at least an S-1 bachelor's degree or a four-year diploma from an accredited higher-education institution and study programme. It stops there. No sertifikat pendidik is named for those roles.

Read together, the floor rose on the nonformal side while the extra condition stayed on the formal one. A KB or TPA educator who could previously qualify on an SMA certificate now needs a degree, but unlike the TK guru beside them they are not additionally required to hold a sertifikat pendidik.

Notice what Pasal 6 does not do. It sets no age limit, no minimum years of service and no named training course. The qualification is the ijazah, and the accreditation status of the institution and the study programme that issued it.

How long do existing staff have to catch up?

Pasal 20, the transitional provision, is explicit. A tutor, a fasilitator or a Pendidik PAUD nonformal who is a secondary-school graduate and who was appointed before the regulation took effect continues to carry out their duties as a Pendidik, which the new Standar Proses sets out.

Nobody has to be dismissed. They must meet the Pasal 6 ayat (3) qualification within ten years, counted from the date the regulation was promulgated rather than from the date it was signed. It was signed on 29 October 2025 and promulgated on 31 October 2025, so the deadline is 31 October 2035.

Now read what the article does not say. It protects people already appointed.

It says nothing about a person you hire next month. For a new hire the text offers no transitional shelter, which turns the qualification question into a recruitment question now rather than a decade-long project.

The caregiver who has been with you for years is safe and has a long runway. The candidate you interview on Monday is assessed against Pasal 6 as it stands today.

Does RPL still shorten the route to a degree?

Rekognisi Pembelajaran Lampau is the mechanism everyone reaches for here, and it needs stating carefully, because the new regulation and the higher-education system are two different things. Inside Permendikdasmen 21/2025, RPL appears once.

Pasal 7 allows qualification through RPL for instruktur, referring back to Pasal 6 ayat (4), and equates it to level IV of the Kualifikasi Kerja Nasional Indonesia. Instruktur work at vocational secondary level. Pendidik PAUD nonformal are not named there.

Separately, and on its own legal basis, RPL toward a degree does exist for PAUD teachers. Permendikbudristek Nomor 41 Tahun 2021 defines RPL as recognition of learning achieved through formal, nonformal and informal education and through work experience, as a basis for continuing formal education.

The Direktorat Guru PAUD dan Dikmas guide for the S1 PG PAUD programme, published March 2024, sets the entry conditions at an SMA qualification and a minimum of three years of work experience at a PAUD centre. Under RPL Type A, recognition of nonformal or informal learning and of work experience may only be carried out by a study programme accredited at least B or Baik Sekali, which narrows the list of universities that can actually do it.

Diklat Berjenjang sits underneath that rather than beside it. The Direktorat Guru PAUD dan PNF runs three levels, the basic level at 48 lesson hours of in-depth material, the intermediate level at 64 and the advanced level at 80, each carrying 210 lesson hours of independent assignments, with participants no older than 55 and holding at least an SMA qualification.

The Direktorat lists among its benefits that the certificate can be counted in RPL run by a PAUD study programme. That is the accurate description. The diklat certificate is a step toward the ijazah, not a substitute for one, and not a sertifikat pendidik.

The bar for centre heads moved the other way

While the floor rose for educators, it disappeared for everyone else. Pasal 2 ayat (3) defines the standar Tenaga Kependidikan selain Pendidik as a minimum criterion of competence, and only competence.

There is no parallel to Pasal 6 in that half of the regulation, so no academic qualification is set for the roles listed in Pasal 10 ayat (2), which include kepala Satuan Pendidikan, pendamping Satuan Pendidikan, library staff, laboratory staff and administrative staff. Pasal 12 adds that their number and type are adjusted to what the centre needs to operate.

Compare that with what was revoked. Permendikbud 137/2014 Pasal 29 required the head of a KB, TPA or SPS to hold the guru pendamping academic qualification, to be no older than 55 at appointment, to have at least three years of experience as a guru pendamping, and to hold both a selection certificate and a sertifikat Pendidikan dan Pelatihan Kepala Satuan PAUD. Pasal 30 ayat (1) required administrative staff to hold at least an SMA ijazah.

None of those bars survive. That is not permission to appoint anyone, since the competency criteria still bind and the foundation that runs a centre can set stricter internal rules. It does mean the paperwork test operators have used for a decade when appointing a centre head is no longer the test the regulation applies.

Staffing records after the rule change

The ministry documents the scale of the problem itself. The Direktorat RPL guide cites Dapodik data for 2023 showing 235,977 teachers with an S1 educational background and 224,212 without one, and its foreword states that 46 percent of PAUD teachers in Indonesia do not hold an S1 qualification. The underlying obligation is older than any of these regulations: Undang-Undang Nomor 14 Tahun 2005 tentang Guru dan Dosen, Pasal 8, requires a teacher to hold an academic qualification, competence, a sertifikat pendidik, and physical and spiritual health.

There is a government route. The Program Pemenuhan Kualifikasi Akademik S-1/D-4 bagi Guru is administered through the SIPKA Guru application at gtk.kemendikdasmen.go.id/sipka, funded at a maximum of Rp3 million per student per semester, with 58 higher-education institutions having declared their willingness to take part. Registration runs in intake rounds, so the practical step is to check whether the current one is open rather than to assume it is.

Be clear about what software does not do here. Happy Kamper does not store or verify staff qualifications, does not track when a certificate or a deadline expires, and does not file anything with your Dinas Pendidikan.

No system can tell you whether a study programme was accredited on the day an ijazah was issued. That is a document you ask the candidate for and keep yourself.

What a system does hold is the operational half of the question, which is who was working, when, and with which group of children. Staff rosters record which named adult was scheduled where, attendance records record which children were present against it, and enrolment records hold the group each child belongs to. When a Dinas Pendidikan visit or an accreditation assessment asks who was in a room on a particular morning, that is the record being read, and it is separate from the certificate file in your cabinet.

For how staffing fits the wider running of a centre, see our early education and daycare overview. Our guide to getting your PAUD operating licence covers the stage before this one, and PAUD accreditation is where these staffing records are read back to you.

Key Takeaways

Permendikbud 137/2014 is gone. Permendikdasmen 21/2025, signed on 29 October 2025, revoked it in full at Pasal 21 huruf k, along with eleven other ministerial regulations. Advice that still describes the three-tier guru PAUD, guru pendamping and guru pendamping muda scheme is describing revoked law.

The SMA route into a PAUD room has closed. Pasal 6 ayat (3) sets a floor of S-1 or D-IV from an accredited higher-education institution and study programme for a Pendidik PAUD nonformal, with no sertifikat pendidik required. Pasal 6 ayat (1) sets the same degree floor for a guru on the formal path and adds the sertifikat pendidik on top.

Pasal 20 protects staff already appointed and gives them until 31 October 2035 to qualify. It offers nothing to a new hire, which makes this a recruitment decision now rather than a problem for the next decade.

RPL toward an S1 PG PAUD is real but sits outside this regulation, under Permendikbudristek 41/2021, and needs three years of experience at a PAUD centre plus a study programme accredited at least B. A Diklat Berjenjang certificate feeds that process without being a qualification in itself. Meanwhile the requirements for centre heads and administrative staff moved the opposite way, to competence only, where Pasal 29 and Pasal 30 of the revoked regulation set degrees, an age ceiling and named certificates.