1,405 caught cheating during entrance exams
1,405 caught cheating during entrance exams
JAKARTA (JP): The national exam committee unearthed 1,405
cheating cases during the two-day nationwide state university
admission tests last June, an official report said Saturday.
The committee has turned over to the police 22 people caught
doing the admission tests for others, Soesmalijah Soewondo, a
member of the national test committee, told The Jakarta Post.
The cheating occurred mostly in Manado, Ujungpandang and
Malang, the report said. It also happened in Jakarta, Surabaya
and Yogyakarta.
Soesmilijah accepted that such cheating practices always
happen during college entrance exams and are difficult to
eliminate. However, she refused to say if it is an indication
that prospective state university students are not of the
required standard.
"I believe it occurred owing to the stiff competition to enter
state universities," Soesmalijah, a staff lecturer at the
University of Indonesia School of Psychology, said.
During this year's entrance tests, the results of which were
announced on July 27, only 63,753 out of 357,452 prospective
students were admitted to the 89 state universities. Of the
63,753 admitted, 33,376 were enrolled in natural sciences
programs and 30,377 in the social sciences programs.
State universities are the favorite choice of many students on
account of their low tuition fees, thanks to substantial
government subsidies, and the adequate facilities they offer.
"Many prospective students will do anything to enter state
universities because studying at them is a lot cheaper than at
private ones," Soesmalijah said.
She said this year's high incidence of cheating is
regrettable. "The students did not seem to have enough self-
confidence," she said.
Prospective students who had their tests done by others were
dropped from the list and turned down, she said.
Last year, a total of 593 "jockeys", or people who sat the
tests for others, were caught throughout Indonesia. Jockeys are
known to cooperate with corrupt insiders.
Test participants are divided into three regions according to
where they live: Group A, comprises 17 universities in Jakarta,
Sumatra, West Kalimantan and West Java; Group B comprises nine
universities in Central Java, Yogyakarta, South Kalimantan,
Central Kalimantan and East Kalimantan; and Group C comprises 17
universities in East Java, Bali, Nusa Tenggara, Sulawesi, Maluku
and Irian Jaya. (31)