Cirebon's Online Junior High School Admissions See Parents Still Flocking to Schools for Help

The 2026 New Student Admission System (SPMB) for junior high schools in Cirebon City has commenced. Although the process is online, a number of parents were observed visiting their target junior high schools to register. Based on monitoring, several parents were seen at SMP Negeri 4 Cirebon on Thursday (18/6). One of them, Ida Rosidah, visited the school to register her child. “My child from SD Kartika has long wanted to enrol in this school,” said Ida. Her child has achievements in sports, and SMP 4 has quite a number of students who are also athletes. Ida registered her child through the sports achievement pathway. Ida admitted she deliberately visited the registration committee at the target junior high school because she was afraid of making a mistake. “The registration is online, I was afraid of making a mistake. So I came directly here,” she said. Meanwhile, the Education Agency (Disdik) of Cirebon City, West Java, has opened assistance services for parents and students during the 2026 SPMB implementation. “The aim is to minimise errors during the online registration process,” said Ade Cahyani, Head of the Primary Education Division at Disdik Cirebon City. Registration can be carried out at the student’s original school, at the target school, or at the Disdik Cirebon City office. Ade explained that assistance is provided considering that parents’ abilities to use devices and access digital services are not uniform. However, the registration process must still be conducted online, and data verification is carried out according to the applicable standard operating procedures (SOP). The most common errors encountered during the registration process are mistakes in filling in data and discrepancies in the coordinate points of the prospective student’s domicile. Schools can reject data that does not match the verification results, so parents and prospective students are asked to ensure all inputted data is correct before submission. The Cirebon City SPMB is divided into two stages: the first and second stages. Currently, new student registration is entering the first stage, which covers the affirmation, mutation, and achievement pathways. For the first stage of SPMB, Disdik Cirebon City has set a quota of 30 percent for the achievement pathway, 20 percent for affirmation, and five percent for mutation, totalling 55 percent of the overall available capacity. “A portion of the affirmation quota is also allocated for students with special needs (PDBK),” said Ade. The remaining 45 percent quota will be opened in the second stage through the domicile pathway in accordance with regulations set by the local government.