Govt mulls over asking students to take more graduation exams

This article was originally published at The Jakarta Post.

Thu, 10/01/2009 11:31 AM | National

The government is considering whether to put in place more exams for students graduating from high and junior high schools, to assess their physical skills and behavior.

Secretary of the directorate general of elementary and secondary education at the National Education Ministry, Bambang Indriyanto, told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday that the ministry would test students across the country on subjects such as religion, sports and the arts, once the implementation of the national examinations ran smoothly.

"I hope we can do that in the next term," he said, referring to the next five-year period.

The 2005 regulation on national education standardization stipulates that five groups of subjects taught in school must be treated with the same level of importance when determining whether a student has passed the national exams.

The five groups are religion and morality, citizenship and character, science and technology, the arts, as well as sports and health.

So far, only subjects from the science and technology group are tested in the national exams.

Aside from Indonesian, mathematics and English exams taken in high school, junior high school students must also take a natural sciences exam.

Senior high students taking natural sciences classes are also required to pass physics, chemistry and biology exams. Those enrolled in social sciences classes must take economy, sociology and geography exams.

Experts have long criticized the concept and implementation of the national exams, saying it only assesses students' cognitive skills.

National education should not only shape students into knowledgeable individuals, but it should also give them a broad sets of soft skills and a good character, experts argue.

Noted education expert Arief Rachman said the country still needed a national exam. However, the government "had been mistaken in determining the passing criteria", he added. "They should not set the same minimum score for every school in the country. Every school has its own strengths and the government should take into consideration students' varying levels across schools in different regions."

The national exams require all students score an average of 5.5 to graduate.

He said forcing students to pass with a certain score only led them to cheat.

"But if their assessment was based on an average score in their own regions, we could minimize the cheating," he said.

Arief added that the national exams should never be used as a means to determine a school's level and quality.

The ministry, Bambang said, was using students' scores in the national exams to assess the quality of the schools across the country.

"We classify them according to their quality," he added.

The schools, he said, will be categorized into three levels: minimum service standard schools, national standard schools and international standard schools. (adh)