Failure rate keeps state university enrollment down

Sari P. Setiogi and P.C. Naommy, Jakarta

The improved quality of private universities in recent years has encouraged many students to no longer focus all their energies on gaining admission to state universities, education experts said on Thursday.

They were commenting on the declining number of students taking part in this year's two-day state university admission examinations (SPMB), which started on Wednesday.

"Many private universities are of better quality, we know that. Some even have prestigious schools that the state ones don't have," education expert Arief Rachman told The Jakarta Post.

Apart from that, he said, students have become more realistic about the difficulties involved in passing the state entrance examinations.

"Students today are also more realistic. They are fully aware that their chances of failure in the SPMB are about 80 percent. Only a limited number of places are available in state universities. So they often prefer to enroll in private ones," said Arief.

A similar view was expressed by Ridla Bakri, the SPMB Jakarta committee secretary, who said that the improving quality of private universities was attracting increasing numbers of students.

Private universities, which held their admission tests earlier, could have attracted many more students, he added.

Around 344,000 students participated in the SPMB around the country this year, down from 350,306 in 2003. The number of candidates stood at 398,589 in 2002.

About 80,000 places are up for grabs in 48 state universities throughout Indonesia this year, given a ratio of applicants to those gaining places of about 1:6.

In Jakarta, at least 52,725 students sat the SPMB last year. However, this year the figure had dropped to 48,695 candidates.

The biggest decrease in candidates was seen in Yogyakarta, where a drop of 25 percent to 16,171 candidates was recorded, said Eko Budihardjo, the SPMB committee chairman for Region II, which covers Central Java, East Java, Bali, Kalimantan and Sulawesi.

This was followed by Surakarta, where the number of candidates was down by 9.5 percent, he said.

Eko agreed that the decline was due to the fact that many students from well-off families preferred to continue their studies at private or overseas universities.

"And those from poor families might prefer to take diploma courses that are better capable of guaranteeing them jobs soon after they finish their studies," he said.

Meanwhile, two exam cheats were caught in the North Sumatra capital of Medan on Thursday after hiring substitutes to sit the tests for them, while in Surabaya, a female student was caught in possession of a cellular phone during the tests.

Separately, in response to a public outcry over the high cost of education in state universities, Director General of Higher Education Satrio Soemantri Brodjonegoro said the government would not interfere in internal university affairs.

"The imposition of admission and tuition fees is the result of the policies of individual universities. We can't intervene," he said.

However, Satrio said that high costs should not negate the right of all citizens to an education. "We have provided access, but, of course, it's not for free," he added.

He admitted that education was currently not cheap, but that this was because universities needed to provide adequate infrastructure to improve the competencies and quality of their graduates.

According to Satrio, average university fees were around Rp 16 million (US$1,883) per annum per student, regardless of the course being studied.

High admission and tuition fees have prevented many bright but poor students from gaining admission to university. The University of Indonesia, for example, requires students to pay admission fees of between Rp 5 and Rp 25 million, and tuition fees of between Rp 1.23 and Rp 1.75 million per semester.