Our sorry state of education

Our sorry state of education

Ever since its inception, controversy has bedeviled the
government's system of evaluating the progress and learning
achievements of students in Indonesian junior and senior high
schools.

The current uproar over the introduction this school year of
what education officials refer to as a "conversion table" aimed
at "equalizing" the scores of high school students in the
country's various regions can therefore be regarded as being no
more than new salt in an old wound that has never properly
healed.

Even so, it would certainly be useful if the government, and
the nation, were to seriously heed the objections that have been
raised by educators and students, against the system.

To briefly recap: In 2001, a new system of junior and senior
high examinations on a standardized, nationwide level, known by
the Indonesian acronym UAN, was introduced to replace and
supposedly improve the older system known as Ebtanas.

Under the UAN examination system as applied during the last
academic year, tests in three subjects -- Bahasa Indonesia,
English and mathematics -- were prescribed and evaluated on a
national level. Other examination subjects were left for the
various schools and regions to decide. Students, however, could
only pass if they tallied a minimum score of 3.01 out of 10.0 for
each of those three subjects. Apparently, all proceeded as
expected because the Ministry of National Education then decided
to raise the minimum threshold for passing to 4.01.

Naturally, students, parents and teachers promptly objected to
the higher standards. Many of them felt that the new threshold of
4.01 would be too difficult for students and thus greatly swell
the numbers of students who failed -- a fear, it seems, that was
belatedly shared by the officials at the Ministry of National
Education. So, a "conversion table" was drawn up -- apparently
without the knowledge of many teachers, principals or students --
to "equalize achievements" in recognition of the differences in
teaching standards in the various regions.

In actual practice, the conversion system is an affront upon
all our accepted principles of moral and intellectual education,
because it introduces an element of gross injustice into the
scoring. Complicated details aside, what the conversion system
means is that students who answer more than half of all the test
questions correctly will see their final scores considerably
lowered, while those who fail to do so will receive a bonus in
the form of jacked up grades.

For schools that exist for no other reason than to provide an
income for their staff and employees, the system is obviously a
blessing. For those that consider it their duty to turn out
graduates of high moral integrity with intellectual astuteness,
the system works against them. And for the brightest students who
plan to further their studies abroad after high school, it is
especially harmful since many of the better institutions of
higher learning in places like Australia, Singapore and the U.S.
only accept graduates with the highest grades.

The unfairness of the system must be immediately apparent to
all those who hold that fairness and honesty are elementary
aspects of education. Fairness and honesty must not be sacrificed
for the sake of satisfying the egos of a handful of officials
eager to boost their prestige by artificially inflating the
numbers of "successful" high school graduates.

Many here happen to be of the view that Indonesians are
capable of scoring high in the sciences or the humanities,
provided that they have access to the best that formal education
in this country has to offer. The many young Indonesians who have
won international recognition in the sciences or arts are proof
that this is true. It is now up to the government to do whatever
it can to improve the state of education this country in order
that every Indonesian may be able to realize his or her fullest
potential.