MTQ Committee Establishes Scoring Scheme to Determine Overall Champion
Jakarta (ANTARA) - The committee for the 31st National Musabaqah Tilawatil Quran (MTQ) has established a scoring scheme to determine the overall champion for the event, which will take place in Semarang, Central Java, from 11 to 20 September 2026.
“Regarding the guidelines for determining the overall championship, legally speaking, it is clear that more recent provisions supersede previous ones,” stated the Director of Islamic Religious Information at the Ministry of Religious Affairs, Muchlis Muhammad Hanafi, in Jakarta on Tuesday.
In determining the overall champion, the committee will utilise a 9-7-5-3-2-1 scoring system. This scheme is a recommendation from the 2025 National Working Meeting of the National Tilawatil Quran Development Institute (LPTQ).
Muchlis noted that an explanation of the scoring scheme was necessary because conflicting technical information regarding different scoring systems had been circulating.
“The issue is that the old technical information had already spread, leading to questions. Therefore, an explanation is required to prevent further confusion,” said Muchlis.
The Head of the Sub-directorate for Tilawah and Musabaqah Al Quran at the Ministry of Religious Affairs, Rijal Ahmad Rangkuty, explained that there were previously two different provisions regarding point calculations for the overall championship.
The Technical Guidelines (Juknis) for MTQ 2026, published on 11 November 2025, listed a 20-15-10-3-2-1 scheme. Under that system, 1st place earned 20 points, 2nd place 15 points, 3rd place 10 points, 1st runner-up 3 points, 2nd runner-up 2 points, and 3rd runner-up 1 point.
“These guidelines were published on 11 November, prior to the National LPTQ Working Meeting,” said Rijal.
The National LPTQ Working Meeting, held in late November 2025, subsequently recommended changing the scoring scheme to 9-7-5-3-2-1.
Rijal explained that the 20-15-10-3-2-1 scheme was previously used during the 30th National MTQ in East Kalimantan and previous events in Southeast Sulawesi. Meanwhile, the 9-7-5-3-2-1 scheme is the result of the 2025 National LPTQ Working Meeting recommendation.
According to Rijal, both schemes differ in how they weight the points for winners and runners-up. In the 9-7-5-3-2-1 scheme, the point difference between the main winners and the runners-up is smaller.
For example, three participants who each achieve 1st runner-up status would collect 9 points for their province. This total is equivalent to the points earned by a single 1st place winner.
In contrast, under the 20-15-10-3-2-1 scheme, three 1st runner-up winners would only collect 9 points, which would not even match the 10 points earned by a single 3rd place winner.
“With the scheme resulting from the Working Meeting (9-7-5-3-2-1), the point gap between the runners-up and the first-place winner is relatively small,” he said.
He added that both schemes have their own considerations. The scheme in the technical guidelines gives more weight to the primary winners, whereas the scheme from the Working Meeting provides a larger proportion of points to the runners-up.