State universities admit 63,090 people
State universities admit 63,090 people
JAKARTA (JP): The government announced yesterday the 63,090
people who passed the entrance exams for the 89 state
universities nationwide.
The announcement, made through some local newspapers and lists
distributed at the Senayan Sports Stadium, was greeted with
elation by those who passed, and tears or indifference by some of
the 412,638 people not admitted.
"I think I'll go to Saudi Arabia to study," Agung, a graduate
from Pondok Gontor Islamic boarding school in East Java, said
when he found he had not been admitted to the School of Politics
and Social Sciences at the University of Indonesia.
Seats at the 89 state universities are popular because of the
better education and lower tuition fees. State colleges are
heavily subsidized by the government.
The number of people taking the exams this year dropped by
1.69 percent from 419,737 last year.
Declining
Budi Sampurna, a member of the exam committee, while
confirming a declining interest in enrolling at state
universities, said some parts of the country, particularly the
eastern provinces, showed an increase in the number of people who
took the test.
Officials believe that the decline in the number of
participants is due to many high school graduates deciding to
enroll at private universities without bothering to take the
state exam.
Sampurna said there were still some space in certain unpopular
programs at the state universities.
"Most of the programs are teaching programs," he said.
He cited the physics, mathematics, chemistry and home
economics teaching programs as among those that were not filled
to capacity. The development economics program also has some
vacant seats.
Sampurna said that of the 63,090 admitted, 24,809 were
enrolled in natural science, 20,261 in social science, 5,683 in
the natural science teaching program and 12,337 in the social
science teaching program.
In terms of the number of applicants, Gadjah Mada University
in Yogyakarta ranked first, followed by the Bandung Institute of
Technology (ITB), the University of Indonesia in Jakarta and the
March 11 University (UNS) in Surakarta.
Grades
A total of 43,943 people applied to Gadjah Mada but only 2,061
were admitted. ITB admitted 1,610 students from 36,460
applicants. University of Indonesia admitted 1,112 students out
of 28,207 applicants. UNS took in 606 students from 16,129
applicants.
Meanwhile, Soesmalijah Soewondo, chairman of the committee of
entrance exams for Jakarta, said at the University of Indonesia's
main campus in nearby Depok that the committee wouldn't announce
the grades of the students because they would cause controversy
about the quality of Indonesian high schools and teachers. (05)