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.