New system promises fair admissions
New system promises fair admissions
Leony Aurora , Jakarta
The Jakarta Junior/High School Education Agency gave its
assurance that admissions to state senior and vocational high
schools would be determined strictly by their academic
achievements.
Agency head Margani Mustar said on Tuesday that "special
recommendations", which were commonly used in previous years to
ensure the enrollment of some students, would not be permitted.
"I have ordered state schools that they only accept students
through the city's computerized admission system," he said.
Using the new system, students can submit applications for up
to five preferred schools. The computer program runs students'
grade point average (GPA) -- calculated from their scores on the
national exams in Mathematics, Bahasa Indonesia and English --
against the minimum GPA criteria of their chosen schools until it
finds a match.
"There will be no human intervention, everything is ruled by
the system," Margani said.
He asserted the GPAs entered into the system would be those
from agency records, not from student transcripts -- which are
attached to their diplomas.
"Admission officials will only enter students' names and
registration numbers. Their grades will be taken from the
(agency's) database," he explained. "This way, we can eliminate
fake diplomas."
The Ministry of National Education announced the national exam
results for junior high school students on Monday: Only 8.13
percent of Jakarta's 117,652 students that took the exams, or
9,562 students, did not pass.
Kamaluddin, head of the junior high school office at the city
elementary school education agency, said only 804 of 11,881
Islamic junior high school students who took the exams had
failed.
Available admission space at state and private senior high and
vocational schools totals 186,146, or 42 percent more than the
130,431 junior high graduates.
Similarly, only 127,216 students -- of which 9,656 are from
Greater Jakarta -- have taken the junior high entrance exams for
enrolment at Jakarta schools, less than the 149,077 admission
space available.
"Some 6,000 students have been granted an exam waiver for
admission," said Kamaluddin, such as in Kepulauan Seribu regency
or those entering "open", or correspondence, junior high schools.
"Approximately 15,000 seats in junior high schools will be
vacant this academic year."
I-box
Admission guidelines for senior high schools:
* Parents may visit any state senior/vocational high school and
apply for a maximum of five preferred schools -- or three for
vocational schools; no application fee
* Students' admissions GPAs are calculated from national exam
results in English, Bahasa Indonesia and Mathematics
* Student GPAs are run through a computer program against minimum
grade criteria of chosen schools to find a match
* Students not accepted by any of their five preferences may
resubmit their application forms with five new options during the
July 9-12 admission period
* Parents can monitor application status at www.dikmentidki.psb-
online.or.id or by sending an SMS containing the text "unibraw
psb jkt" (registration number) to 5252 for Indosat users and 7890
for Telkomsel users:
* Admission results will be announced at 8 a.m., July 13 at
individual schools and on official website
* Registration period is from July 13 to July 15; registration is
conducted by individual schools
* A second admission period will be held from July 16 to July 17
to fill remaining admission spaces
Source: Jakarta Junior/High School Education Agency