Students in tsunami-ravaged Aceh sit their final exams

The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh, Jakarta

With hundreds of schools still in ruins, many senior high school students put the devastation of the Dec. 26 tsunami behind them on Monday, turning up in Banda Aceh to take their national final examinations.

At the SMU 1 senior high school in the city, a school only partially damaged by the waves, at least 378 students began the three days of examinations on Monday.

"There should have been 430 students taking part in these examinations, but some of them died in the disaster," the school's principal, Sanusi Harun, told The Jakarta Post.

The school lost 260 of its 1,132 students in the tsunami, mostly those who lived nearby, Sanusi said.

It had taken in 40 new students whose schools were completely destroyed by the tsunami, he said. Most of them were first and second-year students from the Lhoknga, Leupung, Peukan Bada and Lhoong districts.

"Only one student from another (destroyed) school is taking part in the (final) examinations."

The tsunami is estimated to have caused Rp 1 trillion (US$107.52 million) in damage to the education sector in the province, destroying buildings, important documents and specialized equipment and killing hundreds of teachers.

The bureaucratic nightmare of replacing school records is currently underway, while letters of confirmation will be issued in place of graduation certificates.

Aceh Education Office head Teuku Alamsyah Banta said there were currently 126,000 students from the province taking part in the national final exams. About 580 vocational school students had to take their exams outside or in makeshift buildings because their schools had been destroyed, he said.

"There are still around 1,000 students studying in tents in places like Aceh Jaya and Simeulue," Teuku said.

Teuku said he could not predict how students would fare in the examinations and how much the disrupting effect of the disaster would end up affecting their marks.

"If this examination is done badly, we can repeat it again in October," Teuku said.

Meanwhile, the nationwide examination this year did not surprise high school students in Jakarta as the questions were not much different to previous years.

"We have done several try-outs using previous tests and today's test was similar," said Vindy, a student of SMU 34 senior high school in South Jakarta.

The fact that this year's examination was not much different to previous years raised criticism from experts. Last year, the passing grade index was set at 4.01, while this year a student must get an average of 4.26 to graduate from high school.

Director of Paramadina University's Institute for Educational Reform, Hutomo Dananjaya, said the examination was a mere "centralistic" policy to measure the country's educational quality.

"There is a wide gap between schools in this country. The government cannot use the same exam to decide passing students from schools of different quality," he said.

He expressed fear that such exams would make both students and teachers only pursue the required grade instead of attempting to acquire a full comprehension of school subjects.

A member of the National Education Standardization Body, Seto Mulyadi, admitted that the body, which was set up this year to organize and oversee the national examinations, is not yet fully operational.

"We will only monitor and then evaluate this year's exam," he said. "And we'll also evaluate whether the raising of this year's passing grade violates a child's basic rights."