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National exams run smoothly despite hiccups

Indah Setiawati and Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Tangerang | Jakarta | Tue, April 15 2014, 10:44 AM

The first day of national examinations for high school students in Jakarta and Tangerang in Banten ran smoothly, although there were reports of technical glitches and circulating answer keys. 

Jakarta Education Agency head Lasro Marbun said he visited eight high schools in the capital and monitored reports from his subordinates on Monday. 

“I received no reports of questions being leaked to students or circulating answer keys. Some schools saw an excess of question sheets and some damaged question sheets. They were able to handle the problems with the stock,” he told The Jakarta Post over the phone. 

On the other hand, Federation for Indonesian Teachers Associations (FSGI) secretary-general Retno Listyarti said her organization had received a number of reports of misconduct during the first day of the exams. 

“We received reports indicating that answer keys were being sold in Garut, Indramayu and Jakarta. The supervisors found the answer keys in students’ cell phones. They sent the evidence to us via email,” she told the Post over the phone on Monday. 

Retno said that answer keys were seen circulating during the Geography exam in a school in Jakarta and Indonesian language exam in a school in Garut as well as Indramayu.  

She said her organization would not report the cases to the police because she believed that both teachers and students were victims of the unfair policy of the exams, which is used to determine graduation and to judge schools’ quality. 

“As long as the government uses the exams to determine whether a student graduates, many students will try to pass the exams by any means,” she said. 

The Jakarta Education Agency recorded that 119,879 high school and vocational school students would sit the exams from April 14 until April 16. In Tangerang, the exams also commenced smoothly. 

Tangerang Regent Ahmed Zaki Iskandar, who visited a number of schools in the regency on Monday morning, said he was relieved to see that the exams were running smoother than last year. 

“Based on our observations, everything ran as expected. Hopefully, technical glitches such as delayed distribution of exam materials, shortages and wrong addresses will not occur again this year,” he said. 

Zaki said he was upbeat that the graduation rate in his regency would reach the targeted 100 percent because he believed that schools had prepared their students.  

According to the Tangerang Regency Education Agency, this year’s exams are being administered at 29 state high schools, 96 private high schools, eight state vocational schools and 120 private vocational schools. 

SMA 10 Tangerang principal Lili Kusmaya said all students arrived on time to take the exams and that there were no reports of sick students or damaged question sheets. 

Meanwhile, there was a shortage of question sheets at SMA Santa Ursula in Tangerang city, resulting in a late start for many students. 

“The language class did not receive their Indonesian language question sheets and got the question sheets for the science and social science classes instead,” Yayan Sopian, a supervising coordinator from Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, said. 

He said the Tangerang city Education Agency had to go to the Pahoa school in Tangerang regency to copy the question sheets because there was no other nearby schools that had language classes.

THE COMMENT  

Government education departments in preparation for the national exam should be better because many schools were damaged sheet exam questions and there is also a question of excess sheet , especially schools in the area outlying experiencing such events . The government should pay attention to the distribution of the national exam in the area outlying not only in the Greater Jakarta area alone . 

Distribution sheet for the national exam questions for the area outlying is often too late , it is in because by various factors , especially poor weather factors , this resulted in the delay distribution . The school is experiencing these problems exist that can not be overcome and some are able to handle it .

Government education departments should improve the distribution of the national examination system so that next year's national exams is no longer a matter of question sheets were lacking, excess or damaged and national exams can run smoothly and safely .
For the answer key outstanding issue was just a , it is expected that students do not trust the answer key outstanding at the time of the exam . The students should be confident in its ability to answer the national exam answer keys do not rely on the outstanding key is not necessarily the correct answer outstanding . 

The school should provide guidance for their students not to believe that the answer key outstanding and provide support for the student ready to face national exam .
The problem is less the question sheet , excess or damaged and the answer key outstanding common during the national exams in previous years and years now . Government education departments must improve return on national exam exam that is held just 3 days that determine student graduation .

Should that determines the graduation of students from the school because the school more aware of their students instead of the national exams that give students at school graduation . It is less effective done by government education departments that conduct national examinations as determining student graduation .