National system of final exams should not be shelved outright<\/p>\n
Ardimas Sasdi, Staff Writer, The Jakarta Post,
\nBerkeley, California, ajambak@calmail.berkeley.edu<\/p>\n
The fate of the national final exams for high schools, or UAN
\n-- the main yardstick used to measure the performance of
\nindividual students and gauge the general quality of education --
\nis in limbo ahead of the examinations next month.<\/p>\n
The movement evolved last year after the Ministry of Education
\nunveiled a plan to raise the passing grade for the almost
\n20-year-old exams by one point from the existing 3.01 to a 4.01
\naverage. A group of more than 20 non-government organizations
\ngave the government a week to shelve the plan to hold the annual
\ntests or face a lawsuit. This ultimatum is the toughest challenge
\nyet faced by the government on standardized testing.<\/p>\n
The critics, who consist of teachers' associations, private
\nschools and education experts, say in a series of arguments that
\nthe planned UAN is in violation of National Education Law 2003
\nand is against the spirit of reform and the principles of
\ndecentralization.<\/p>\n
Former rector of the Jakarta Teachers' Training Institute
\nProf. Winarno Surakhmad told Kompas last week the final tests
\nshould be conducted by schools and that nationwide testing could
\nbe done every three to five years if its goal were to get a map
\nof schools' performance. As a regulator of education the
\ngovernment would serve only as a facilitator of the test, not as
\nan organizer, he said.<\/p>\n
According to Article 2 of Ministry of Education decree No.
\n153\/2003, the final national exam, which is held simultaneously
\nacross the country, is aimed to collect information about the
\nachievement of individual students and the quality of education
\nas part of public accountability.<\/p>\n
Article 3 says the testing is necessary as a means of quality
\ncontrol and as a selection criteria for students who will pursue
\ntheir studies in higher education.<\/p>\n
In line with the program of regional autonomy, the central
\ngovernment has gradually delegated its authority on education in
\ncertain areas, including organizing final exams for primary and
\nsecondary schools. This year's UAN, for example, covers only
\nmath, English, and the Indonesian language, while the rest are
\nprepared by schools under the guidance of district education
\noffices.<\/p>\n
Education expert Arief Rachman, who is also chief of Unesco's
\nnational commission for Indonesia, said the final say on whether
\nstudents pass the tests should stay in the hands of schools. He
\nsaid he was aware some schools raised their grades to maintain
\ntheir reputation and ward off criticism from the public.<\/p>\n
The plan to raise a passing grade for the final tests at
\njunior and senior high schools to an average of 4.01 from 3.01
\nfor all subjects has sparked worries among many students and
\ntheir parents but has been praised by others, who have long
\nqueried the low passing score, saying it degraded the
\nexaminations. With a 3.01 passing score most students pass the
\nfinals.<\/p>\n
The list of UAN shortcomings is long and many are valid. One
\nweakness is that the test is not tailored to different regional
\nconditions. There are big disparities from one region to another
\nin terms of physical infrastructure -- school buildings,
\nlibraries and laboratories -- the ratio of students to teachers
\nand the wealth of students.<\/p>\n
A one-shot, high-pressure exam is not only unfair, it also
\nfails to provide accurate information about the ability of
\nstudents as their performances during the exams are not just
\ninfluenced by their preparation and ability to take exams but
\nalso by the state of mind of their exam invigilators and other
\ntechnical problems.<\/p>\n
These factors are usually not taken into account -- the
\nscoring is done by computers, while the impact of failing the
\nexams on students is devastating. Leading author and antitesting
\nadvocate Alfie Kohn in a book The Schools Our Children Deserve
\nsaid students who failed from an early age are likely to avoid
\nchallenging tasks, lose interest in academic matters and think in
\nterms of ability rather than effort. Failing also engendered a
\nfeeling of incompetence, if not helplessness.<\/p>\n
The history of nationwide testing at junior and senior high
\nschools is as long and controversial as the background of its
\nbirth.<\/p>\n
The government abolished the national tests in the 1970s in
\nresponse to a public outcry, which questioned the low percentage
\nof students who passed the final exams. But it reinstated the
\ntest in the 1980s after improving their design and organization
\nto improve the degrading quality of education at schools in many
\nareas.<\/p>\n
Ever since, reports have indicated an improvement in the
\nquality of education in the country, especially at public
\nsecondary schools where over 60 percent of around 16 million
\nstudents are enrolled. So remarkable is the progress that some
\npublic schools are now competing with and even surpassing top
\nprivate schools run by Catholic and Protestant foundations, which
\nare used as a barometer of education standards.<\/p>\n
Not ignoring the proven role of the UAN in improving the
\nquality of education and its noble motive to raise the average
\ntest score, the government must be honest and admit that many
\nthings need to be done to improve the testing. A one-point rise
\nis still beyond the reach of many schools in the country.<\/p>\n
The fears of students and their parents are reasonable and as
\na short-term solution the government needs to consider lowering
\nthe average pass or reverting to the original 3.01 score. In the
\nlong-run the government must establish an authoritative
\ncertification agency and an accreditation body for secondary
\nschools like the National Accreditation Body for higher
\neducation, which has a duty to assess colleges and universities
\nand report their progress regularly to the public stake holders.<\/p>\n
The UAN is undoubtedly not perfect -- but it's not a bad
\noption either. While the government is wise to listen to the
\nvoice of the people, it must not shelve the exam finals until a
\nbetter alternative is found or a new mechanism of quality control
\nis put in place.<\/p>\n
The writer is a visiting scholar at the Graduate School of
\nJournalism of the University of California, Berkeley.<\/p>",
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