Graduates unable to get into college

Graduates unable to get into college

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Surabaya/Semarang

Thousands of senior high school graduates in Central and East
Java have not yet received the certificates required to enroll in
higher education institutions.

The research and development division of the Ministry of
National Education said on Wednesday that the ministry's offices
in Central and East Java would receive the graduation
certificates by Wednesday afternoon (June 23) at the latest.

"We distributed the graduation certificates to Jakarta,
Central and East Java provinces on Tuesday. The distribution will
finish this afternoon," said R&D head Dodi Nandika on Wednesday.

However, the Central and East Java provinces had not yet
received the graduation certificates as promised as of Friday.

"We were supposed to receive the graduation certificates last
Monday. There's no clear explanation as to what has caused them
to be late," said Alexius, the headmaster of St. Louis Senior
High School in Surabaya, East Java on Friday.

Alexius said the provincial education office sent invitation
letters to all school headmasters to appear at the office to get
the graduation certificates on Saturday (today).

He also said that the education office seemed reluctant to
talk about anything surrounding the implementation of the
controversial National Final Exams (UAN), including the score
conversion.

"We haven't received much information about the revision of
the conversion scores, so we won't be able to compare this year's
scores with the previous years," he said.

The score conversion had drawn mainly negative reactions from
education experts, especially since the system lowered the scores
of bright students.

The ministry responded to the public outcry by revising the
conversion formula that would allow high performing students to
retain their scores.

"We didn't know anything about the score revision planned by
the ministry, not until today (Friday) after receiving a letter
from the education office of Semarang," said Ken Kendar,
headmaster of government senior high school SMAN 1 Semarang.

Ken also said that he did not know about the details of the
revision, since the letter gave no explanation.

Many teachers and schools have expressed concern over the lack
of transparency in the policies implemented in this year's UAN.

"We would love to support any policies toward the betterment
(of the education system), but please, keep us informed. I hope
the ministry will regard today's experience as a lesson for the
future by promoting transparency, especially for teachers and
schools," said Djumadi, the headmaster of SMAN 70 Jakarta who
distributed the certificates to the students on Wednesday.

The lack of top down information can also be seen from the
response given by the head of the Planning and Development
Division at the Central Java Education office, Gatot Bambang
Hastowo.

Bambang admitted that he did not know much about the score
revision, saying that the whole thing was up to the ministry.

"We just need to accept it. One thing for sure is that we need
to ensure that students will be able to receive their graduation
certificates by June 26," said Gatot.

Dodi admitted that several regional education offices might
not know about the score revision policy from the ministry.

"We regard this as a lesson for improvement in implementing
future policies by being more transparent, said Dodi.