Exam fee uncertainty brings confusion

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

More than 135,000 high school students in Jakarta start their four-day national final examinations (UAN) on Monday amid complaints of costly examination fees.

Even though the City Education Agency prohibits schools from imposing exam fees on students, many schools have apparently still done so.

Gayatri, not her real name, whose son is in his third year at SMU 47 high school, revealed that she had paid a total of Rp 400,000 for several school activities, including for national school examinations and school final examinations. The school examinations were held last week.

"I paid off the fee in two installments last month," she said.

However, deputy principal of the school, Sanusi played down the accusations.

He said that the fee was to finance numerous school activities including outdoor activities.

"The fee is neither for financing national final examinations nor school final examination. It's for the sake of 'mental and educational teachings' as well as other school activities," Sanusi told The Jakarta Post over the phone without further elaborating.

A City Education Agency official said that many schools had imposed examination fees since the beginning of the academic year due to uncertainties surrounding the financing of the final examinations.

"Many schools, not only high schools but also junior high schools and elementary schools have imposed the fee amid uncertainty about who would finance the examinations," the official, who asked not to be named, said.

The agency announced last Tuesday that the government would finance the final examinations and school examinations for all state and private junior high schools and senior high schools.

It had allocated a total of Rp 10.3 billion, of which Rp 2.9 billion was taken from the state budget and Rp 7.4 billion from the city budget.

More than 86,000 junior high school students will sit the national final examinations next week from June 3 to June 7.

Like many senior high school students, Rano, a student of state junior high school SLTP 128 in Halim, East Jakarta, said he had to pay a monthly installment of Rp 10,000 since the beginning of the school year last year for the final examination fee.

The total amount paid by Rano was Rp 100,000 during 10 months.

Deputy principal of the school, Supardiyono, refuted that the fee was used to finance the final examinations.

"That fee is meant for paying computer courses attended by students," said Supardiyono.

He added that some of the money was also used to finance students' evaluation tests.

Separately, Sutarto, principal of state junior high school SLTP 73 in Tebet, South Jakarta, said that the school had not received any money for the implementation of the school final exams.

He also blamed the City Education Agency for the delayed notification about the free final examinations.

"The information that the final exam fee will be shouldered by the city budget should be notified earlier in the first term, not all of a sudden," Sutarto said, adding that despite the new name, the final exam was an annual program that should be easily planned.

The final exams used to be called the National Final Study Evaluation (Ebtanas), but this year it is called UAN. The difference was that Ebtanas was held by the Jakarta Provincial Education Office of the Ministry of National Education. The education office was disbanded following the implementation of the regional autonomy law. Therefore, the exams are now held by the Education Agency, which changed the name of the exams into UAN.

As of today there is no certainty on when the agency would disburse the fund.