Math, English put students to the test

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Mathematics, economics and English have been found to be the most difficult subjects for Indonesian students, despite Indonesia's apparent success recently in the international math and science Olympiad.

The Ministry of National Education said that based on the results of this year's national final examinations publicly announced on Thursday, junior and senior high school students generally faced difficulties in these three subjects.

At the junior high school level, there were high failure rates in mathematics and English, the ministry's center for evaluation of education head Bahrul Hayat said on Thursday.

He said senior high school students experienced difficulties in social science studies.

"For the senior high school level in social studies, it was economics and English," Bahrul said, adding that numbers were still being finalized after Thursday's announcement.

Earlier on Wednesday, the education ministry reported that the number of students who failed the national secondary education exams increased by almost 100 compared to last year, especially in conflict areas.

A total of 4,896,033 secondary level students nationwide took their final examinations earlier this month. They comprised 2,988,733 junior high school students, 1,248,808 senior high school students and 658,492 vocational high school students.

On average more than 16 percent of them, or some 750,000 students, failed the exams and will have to sit repeat examinations on the subjects in which they scored below the 4.26 passing grade.

In Jakarta alone, out of around 63,000 senior high school students taking the exams, 2,656 social studies students scored below the standard of 4.26 in economics, and 1,186 science students failed in mathematics.

The failing students will repeat the examinations from Aug. 23 to Aug. 25, the education ministry said, adding that it has allocated Rp 50 billion (US$5.1 million) to fund the supplementary examinations. The first round cost up to Rp 250 billion.

In an effort to improve the country's education standards, this year the education ministry decided not to apply a grade equalizer, which in the past was used to close the gap in pass rates between more advantaged and disadvantaged regions. Last year, an equalizer was used as more than half of all students failed the exams.

"The results show the actual quality of our education since we do not use the old converted scoring method," Bahrul said. "We make the questions equally difficult for all regions to obtain an objective result of the actual quality."

Discrepancies in the nation's quality of education occurred not only in comparison between provinces or regencies, but even between neighboring schools.

A private senior high school in Depok, Bogor, with only 31 third grade students, reported that only 62 percent of their students passed this year's final examinations.

Suparti, headmaster of SMU Tadika Pertiwi in Depok, explained that most of the exam's questions were applied econometry, while her social studies students were more accustomed to memorizing theory.

Meanwhile, only a quarter of an hour's journey from the private school, one of Jakarta's most popular public senior high schools reported that only three out of its 359 students failed the exam.

The education ministry claims that the examinations were aimed at mapping strengths and weaknesses of each school to better channel assistance and funding in future.

The ministry has said that the examination results would not be a sole consideration on whether students would graduate from schools.

However, its latest regulations on national standards of education state that it is compulsory for students to pass the national exams in order to obtain a certificate.

Some education experts have opposed and criticized the idea of measuring students' competency through centralized examinations.

"Higher standards can be set after all the conditions are met," activist Yanti Muchtar said. "Those (conditions) are competent teachers, sufficient infrastructure and contextuality to local conditions."

She added that it would be better for the schools themselves to decide whether their students should pass to a higher level or not. "Logically, they are the ones who know full well their students' ability and progress."

"And anyway, should one's intellectuality be measured through a single test? Whatever happened to the saying that learning is a process?," she asked. (003)