Students accept failure, hopes to repeat exams

The Jakarta Post, Surabaya, Yogyakarta/Aceh

As her school friends cheer in happiness, Ninik quietly sobs. A student at a vocational school in Surabaya, she had has just learned that she failed to pass the national final examinations.

"Please don't cry, let's go home," one of her friends tried to console Ninik, but she just kept staring morosely at her uniform, already signed by her friends in colorful spray paint, a common practice among newly graduated students.

Ninik is one of many senior high school students who failed the exams in Surabaya city. Last year, only some 566 senior high school students failed, but this year the number increased sharply to 2,555 students.

In East Java province, out of 31,000 senior high school students and 24,300 junior high school students, some 56,000 failed this year's national final examinations.

East Java Education Office director Rasiyo blamed the rising number of fails on the increase in the standard pass grade from 4.01 previously to 4.26 this year. "It's all caused by this increase in the pass grade," said Rasiyo.

However, considering that many students across the country had failed the exams, the province's results were not too bad, he added.

The students who failed the exams will be given extra lessons before sitting repeat exams from Aug. 23 to Aug. 25.

"If they can achieve the standard pass grade of 4.26 in the repeats, then they're through," Rasiyo said.

A member of the Surabaya Education Board, Anita Lie, said the increase in the failure rate clearly showed that the national education system was inadequate.

"It demonstrates that the national education system is at fault," she told The Jakarta Post.

A major mistake, she said, was increasing the standard without considering different cultural circumstances around the country.

"Papuan and Javanese students should not be treated the same as regards teaching methods," said Anita, a lecturer at Petra Christian University.

She urged the government not to dictate education policy in the regions. "The party that has the right to determine whether a student passes the exams or not is the respective school. The central government only provides platforms and systems, while implementation is up to the school," she said.

In Yogyakarta, some 18,657 out of 86,818 junior and senior high school students failed the examinations.

An official at the province's education office, Baskoro Aji, also blamed the increase in the pass grade for the increase in the failure rate.

The head teacher at State Senior High School No. 7 in Yogyakarta, Timbul Mulyanto, said that seven of his 230 students taking part in the exams had failed. Surprisingly, three of the seven students had already been accepted by Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta this year.

"The students mostly failed math and English," Timbul said.

In some schools, the failure rate was very high. At Junior High School No. 15 in Yogyakarta, for instance, 62 of 392 students failed the tests.

In Banda Aceh, the news that over 40 percent of students failed the national final examinations was greeted by mixed reactions from students -- some sobbed while others appeared stunned.

Heni broke into tears when she found that her name was absent from the list of students who passed at State Senior High School No. 3 in Banda Aceh. "Don't cry, we can still sit the repeats," a friend told her.

Other students were angry. "The tests were too difficult. Many of us did not have the chance to study. Out school was closed for a month as it was covered in mud by the tsunami," complained one student.

Some 20 percent of students in the school, which used to be one of the top schools in the city, failed the exams.

Overall, at least 48,000 of the 111,882 students in Aceh sitting the tests, or about 42 percent, failed the exams. Last year, the figure was 33.3 percent.

In some areas, like Aceh Jaya and Aceh Besar regencies, there were schools in which 100 percent of the students failed.

According to the director of the Aceh Education Office, Teuku Alamsyah Banta, students failed on account of several reasons, including the tsunami, the continuing conflict in the province, and the increase in the required pass grade.

"The tsunami forced many schools to close, making it hard to achieve the curriculum targets, not to mention the fact that some schools were damaged or totally destroyed by the disaster," Teuku told the Post on Thursday.