More students shun state universities

JAKARTA (JP): The number of students writing last week's nationwide admission tests for state universities declined by 8 percent as more high school graduates turn towards private universities.

Competition is still stiff with 378,743 participants vying for one of 70,000 seats at the 43 state universities. There were 412,638 participants in 1995.

State universities, particularly the big ones like the University of Indonesia in Jakarta, the Bandung Institute of Technology, Diponegoro University in Semarang and Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, are regarded as centers of excellence.

Besides their academic reputation, these universities are heavily subsidized by the government and therefore charge tuition fees far lower than private universities.

Soesmalijah Soewondo, a member of the national test committee, told The Jakarta Post yesterday that this year many graduates simply decided to shun the test and apply directly to private universities instead.

Many private universities have become as competitive as state universities, said the staff lecturer at the University of Indonesia's School of Psychology.

More people have also opted for shorter courses that offer practical workplace skills rather than pursuing higher education, she said.

The number of private universities increased from 1,076 in 1993 to 1,228 this year. Altogether they offer 1.3 million seats, twice as many as those offered by state universities, according to Ministry of Education and Culture data.

Test participants are divided into three regions according to where they live: Group A, comprising 17 universities in Jakarta, Sumatra, West Kalimantan and West Java; Group B comprising nine universities in Central Java, Yogyakarta, South Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan and East Kalimantan; and Group C comprising 17 universities in East Java, Bali, Nusa Tenggara, Sulawesi, Maluku and Irian Jaya.

Group C saw the steepest decline in the number of participants this year, from 110,602 participants to 99,340. Group A decreased from 207,281 to 189,101 and Group B fell from 94,755 to 90,302.

Soesmalijah said the Jakarta exam committee caught three people allegedly writing the tests for other people.

"We have turned over one of them to the police while the other two are still being investigated," she said.

The exam committee has tried to punish students who hire jockeys to write their tests. Jockeys are known to get cooperation of insiders.

A total of 593 jockeys were caught last year.

Soesmalijah said tests written by jockeys would not be marked and the names of the recalcitrant students would be dropped from the entrance race. (31)