Puan Maharani Highlights Rising Social Pressures Behind UTBK 2026 Cheating
The implementation of the Computer-Based Written Examination for the National Selection Based on Tests (UTBK SNBT) 2026, which began on Tuesday (21/4/2026), has once again been marred by various instances of cheating detected across different regions.
The Chair of the People’s Representative Council of the Republic of Indonesia (DPR RI), Puan Maharani, views this recurring phenomenon not simply as a matter of technical supervision issues, but as a reflection of the increasing social pressures surrounding educational outcomes in Indonesia.
The cheating detected includes the widespread use of proxy test-takers employing fake Identity Cards (KTP) and diplomas, the use of earpieces for communication, and pretending to be late to catch the committee off guard.
For the proxy method, the committee found anomalous data indicating that 2,640 participants were cheating. The committee also suspects the existence of proxy syndicates that will face criminal sanctions.
According to her, the prevalence of manipulative efforts in the selection process for public universities (PTN) demonstrates that the current national education challenges are closely linked to how society perceives achievement.
“This is where it is important for the state to recognise that cheating is not just a technical issue of exam supervision. It is also related to how the education ecosystem shapes perceptions of effort, failure, and competition,” Puan explained.
Amid the high competition to enter PTN, UTBK participants can easily be driven to justify any means to achieve success.
For context, the 2026 UTBK is participated in by 871,496 candidates vying for approximately 260,000 seats in various academic and vocational PTN, as well as diploma and undergraduate programmes.
The granddaughter of Bung Karno stated that the national selection for entering PTN is fundamentally built to uphold one important principle: that access to higher education must be determined by academic capacity and fair effort.
Therefore, she continued, every form of cheating that attempts to breach the system through technological aids, fake identities, or substitute parties is seen as damaging the collective trust in the meritocracy mechanism that has long been the basis for new student admissions.
Puan also urged society to view this issue from a broader perspective, that higher education is not just an academic goal, but part of shaping the character of the younger generation as the nation’s successors.
“When the process of entering university is already tainted by manipulation, the challenge at hand is not just who passes the selection, but what values are being formed before students enter higher education,” she said.