Federation of Indonesian Teachers' Unions Rejects Rerun of Four Pillars Quiz Competition in West Kalimantan, Citing Reasons

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA – The People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) of the Republic of Indonesia has decided to hold a rerun of the Four Pillars Quiz Competition (LCC) at the West Kalimantan (Kalbar) provincial level. This decision was taken following controversy over the judges’ assessment of a participant’s answer from SMAN 1 Pontianak.

Retno Listyarti, Chair of the Expert Council of the Federation of Indonesian Teachers’ Unions (FSGI), views the decision as an evaluation step for the competition’s implementation, which has become a topic of public discussion. Moreover, the rerun will involve independent judges under direct supervision from MPR leadership.

“This appears at first glance to be a fair policy,” she said in her statement on Thursday (14/5/2026).

Nevertheless, she rejects the rerun of the competition. The reason is that repeating the event has a strong potential to generate new pros and cons that do not consider the best interests of the children.

Retno added that rerunning the competition is an inappropriate policy that ignores the rights of children and the psychological condition of all participants. She believes the competition does not need to be rerun. On the other hand, the MPR must ensure that similar incidents do not recur in the future.

She explained the reasons why the MPR does not need to rerun the Four Pillars LCC in West Kalimantan Province. One of them is that the decision would cancel the victory of SMAN 1 Sambas.

“Even though they won through hard effort, they must have strived hard to reach this point. Although SMAN 1 Sambas may have benefited from the judges’ carelessness, that is not the fault of the students from SMAN 1 Sambas; it is the fault of the unprofessional judging panel,” she said.