Govt plan to abandon national exam lauded<\/p>\n
Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
The government's plan to scrap the national exams for
\nelementary schools (Ebtanas) has received a thumbs-up from both
\nteachers and education experts, pointing out that the existing
\nsystem is redundant, misleading and prone to corruption.<\/p>\n
Noted education observer Mochtar Buchori along with an
\nexecutive from the Federation of Indonesian Independent Teachers,
\nSonny Sumarsono, argued that the government's idea to entrust
\neach school to run its own exams will empower both the teachers
\nand the schools.<\/p>\n
They said that the national exam failed to monitor the quality
\nof the education program and curriculum, and it was instead
\nturned into a cash-cow for certain unscrupulous administrators,
\nwherein students were forced to pay exam \"fees\" in order to pass
\nthe test, enabling them to go on to junior high school.<\/p>\n
\"Ebtanas is a redundant program because the schools have the
\nauthority to issue diplomas enough for reference to get higher
\neducation. It has become a commodity since it creates
\nopportunities for bribery in order to get the passing marks.<\/p>\n
\"Moreover, such a nationalized examination reduces the
\nteachers' creativity in transferring knowledge because they are
\nforced to strictly adhere to the curriculum to be evaluated on
\nthe exams, and basically ignoring the students' ability,\" Mochtar
\nsaid on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Minister of National Education Abdul Malik Fajar revealed on
\nWednesday the plan to eliminate Ebtanas for elementary schools in
\nrelation with the nine-year compulsory education program and will
\nsimplify the centralized exams for junior high students.<\/p>\n
The nine-year compulsory education program, which was enacted
\nin 1994, for school age children between seven years old and
\nfifteen comprises the six-year elementary education and another
\nthree years at junior high schools.<\/p>\n
In the existing system, students of elementary, junior high
\nand high schools have to take the national exams which were
\nlaunched in 1983 in order to obtain leaving marks as their
\nreference to enroll with favorite schools.<\/p>\n
The system was initially designed to be a tool to evaluate the
\nnational education program by measuring how well the students had
\nmemorized the nationally-mandated curriculum, some of which has
\nproven to be historically inaccurate, particularly the cases of
\nthe alleged coup in 1965 and East Timor's occupation.<\/p>\n
However, as Sonny put it, the evaluation turned out to be a
\nstandard to measure the students' progress in classes, \"where
\neducation is evaluated based on how well the students answer the
\nmultiple choice questions and not on other aspects such as their
\nexperience and comprehension.\"<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/govt-plan-to-abandon-national-exam-lauded-1447893297",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
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