Students get last chance to take final exam

The Jakarta Post, Medan, Yogyakarta

After failing the national final examination in June, Oki Apriliani was devastated when an illness forced her to miss the makeup test this week after weeks of intense preparation.

"I am really sorry I could not take the repeat exam. But it is not my fault. I was sick and the doctor told me to rest," Oki, a student at SMU Dharma Pancasila high school in Medan, told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

Now she wants one last chance to take the exam. "I hope I can be given another chance," said Oki, who failed Bahasa Indonesia and English in the original test.

Medan's Education Office estimates about 100 junior high school and high school students were unable to take their repeat exams.

The head of the office, Irwan Effendi Lubis, said those students who were unable to take the makeup tests because of illness or some other verifiable reason would be able to take another exam from Aug. 29 to Aug. 31.

He said a third exam date was planned by the Ministry of National Education in anticipation that many students would be unable to take the repeat tests this week.

"Students who could not take the repeat exams should prepare for the upcoming tests. We hope nobody misses these last exams because this will be the last chance," Irwan said.

There is no official data on the number of students in Medan who missed the repeat exams, but according to information from the schools 61 high school students, 128 vocational school students and 106 junior high school students failed to take the tests.

The makeup exams in Medan this week were taken by 1,780 high school students, 3,047 vocational school students and 1,047 junior high school students.

In Yogyakarta province, the local Education Office said 842 junior high school and 669 high school students missed the makeup exams.

"We have prepared letters for each school asking them to list those students who failed to take the repeat exams and their reasons for not showing up at the tests," said the head of the Education Office's supervision program, Baskoro Aji, on Thursday.

Those who could not take the repeat exams this will be able to take their tests from Aug. 29 to Aug. 31, he added.

The results of this week's repeat exams will be announced on Sept. 3. Those students who fail will have three options -- repeat their grade take the national final examinations again next year, take a special course, or apply to private universities and retake the exams next year.

"But I am sure most of the students will pass the repeat exams this week because they had a month to prepare," Baskoro said.