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