Thousands of students to retake exams

Thousands of students to retake exams

Dyah Apsari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Hundreds of thousands of high school students nationwide are to
sit their repeat final examinations from Monday through
Wednesday.

Some of the at least 20,728 students in Jakarta who failed the
national final exams, whose results were announced on June 29 and
those who didn't sit the exams the first time around expressed
nervousness at the prospect of the upcoming tests, which will be
conduced in 25 designated schools across Greater Jakarta.

Not only the students themselves, but their schools were also
making extra efforts to ensure the students passed the repeats.

"We were shocked by the fact that some of our students, who
normally get excellent grades, failed the tests ... Some of them
were very depressed as a result," the head teacher at one private
school in South Jakarta said on Saturday.

"We have tried to help them by urging their parents to
understand that the children need their support at this difficult
time in their lives," he added.

His school, and many others, have been providing extra
lessons, particularly in mathematics and English, which tripped
up many students.

According to a spokesman for the Jakarta Secondary and Higher
Education Agency, Yusen Hardiman, as many as 10,000 high school
and vocational high school students failed the English test,
while 8,000 students failed math.

In the repeats, high school students will resit the subjects
they failed out of the four compulsory subjects: Indonesian
literature, English or another foreign language, mathematics and
economics. Vocational high school students are required to take
Indonesian literature, English and mathematics, Yusen explained.

This year, the government increased the grade required for a
pass by high school students to 4.26, up from last year's 4.01,
in a bid to improve the quality of high school graduates. The
exams were held in June.

The number of students who failed the exams the first time
around rose by almost 100 percent, with the highest failure rates
being recorded in conflict-prone and geographically isolated
areas.

The percentage of Jakarta students who failed this year's
exams was 16.46 percent of 122,154 students registered to sit the
exams the first time around. This is more than double the 7
percent of 126,213 students who failed last year's exams.

Idlo, a student at a private high school in Pondok Labu, said
that he had been admitted to a private university in Serpong,
Tangerang, before the test results showed that he had failed.

"Though I'm supposed to start in the university on Monday, I
have to sit the repeat math test on Wednesday. Hopefully, I will
pass it," he said, adding that the university still required him
to submit a high school certificate.

"I don't want to spend another year in a gray and white
uniform," he added.