Alfiana Pamut was standing in front of an overwhelmingly male audience at SD Inpres Golo Popa, an elementary school in Manggarai Timur District in East Nusa Tenggara, one of the poorest regions in Indonesia. The young woman, who heads the school’s Education User Committee, with a loud and clear voice, read the scores given to each teacher in the school for their service performance that month. As I sat at the back of the room, observing how the meeting went, I could not help being impressed by the scene. In a different context, citizens making demands on teachers to provide better services may be a normalcy. But SD Inpres Golo Popa is located in Compang Necak, a very remote village some three hours of grueling drive from the nearest town. In isolated villages like Compang Necak, teachers tend to be very well respected. Because of the remoteness of the areas, supervisions over the teachers by government officials are at a bare minimum, if any...  — blog.wb.org/blogs