Exam fee uncertainty brings confusion
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.