In post tsunami debacle, fewer students sit Syiah Kuala University entrance exams
In post tsunami debacle, fewer students sit Syiah Kuala University entrance exams
Nani Afrida, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh
Eighteen-year-old Sarah diligently read the exam paper during a
university entrance exam on Wednesday at Syiah Kuala University
in Banda Aceh, with her forehead creasing up now and again in
exasperation as she grappled with some of the more obscure
questions.
Emerging from the exam hall an hour later, she said that she
had done her best and was reasonably confident, given the
circumstances.
"I couldn't answer a lot of the questions, but I think that
that is understandable as our school was closed after the tsunami
struck in December last year. As a result, we fell very far
behind," she said.
Sarah wants to study medicine at Syiah Kuala University,
having wanted to become a doctor ever since she was a child.
Despite the problems she had with the test papers, she still
hopes she will secure a place in the Medical School as the number
of applicants has been low.
This year, the number of senior high school graduates who sat
the entrance examinations for various schools in Syiah Kuala
University only amounted to some 8,000, much less than the usual
11,000 students who sit the tests each year.
The tsunami, which killed approximately 129,000 people in
Aceh, is the principal cause of the decline in the number of
candidates sitting the entrance tests. But, there is also another
reason. Many high school graduates have opted to go to university
outside Aceh as the cost of living in Banda Aceh has increased
dramatically.
"A lot of facilities have been damaged by the tsunami,
including student boarding houses. As there are fewer boarding
houses, rents have soared so that the students can no longer
afford them," said Darni Daud, the acting rector of Syiah Kuala
University.
Syiah Kuala University has places for 3,307 new students this
year. A total of 628 out of these 3,307 places have been given to
students who passed another round of entrance tests held earlier
by the University, leaving 2,679 places for the latest crop of
students.
Currently the university has some 22,000 students, while 1,426
of its students perished in the tsunami, or are still missing.
The university has exempted 1,014 students affected by the
tsunami from paying fees.