Vested interests in national exams
Vested interests in national exams
By Mayling Oey-Gardiner and Peter Gardiner
JAKARTA (JP): This is the time of year when millions of
elementary and secondary students take the national end-of-cycle
examinations known as Ebtanas.
It is also a time of year when many national, regional and
local officials of the Ministry of National Education and local
governments can enjoy the financial spoils of this annual ritual
of holding the nation's schoolchildren to ransom.
This year, senior high school students were scheduled to sit
for their exams from May 22 to 25, followed by junior high school
students from May 29 to 31, and finally primary school students
from June 5 to 7.
Without taking the exams, they are not allowed to graduate and
without a piece of paper indicating the results, they cannot
progress to the next level in the education hierarchy or apply
for a job in the civil service.
These exams include all schools, both public and private.
Private schools must cover the full "cost" of these exams -- in
effect, their students must pay extra.
And this is true, even though many private schools conduct
their own examinations or tests. Costs for state schools are
supposed to be largely covered by the government budget, but in
practice, student charges are still often levied.
If they don't or can't pay, they can't take the exams and they
will not graduate with their classmates who do. Parents, thus,
have no choice but to pay if they want their children to have a
chance at further education or even simply proof of completion at
their current level.
The media have recently been reporting about the amounts of
money involved and also regarding those in favor of abolishing
this expensive end-of-cycle hardship to civil society. The
arguments are fairly straightforward. Firstly, it is a source of
significant additional income contributed by schools, students
and the tax-paying public.
Secondly, the exams serve very little purpose. They are
defended (by the education bureaucracy) as a means of controlling
possible variations in the quality of school level grading
systems and, thus, as a stimulus for schools to improve their
quality.
They are also defended as means to provide greater certainty
in selection of students for progression to higher levels. To
date, however, the validity of these suppositions has not been
proven.
Exam scores appear to have little influence on graduation or
school quality. And it is arguable that selection can be carried
out by other, less expensive and onerous, means.
Not surprisingly, and contrary to increasing popular opinion
to eliminate the Ebtanas, and considering the overall amount of
money involved, the vested interests to maintain the system are
very strong.
Take the example of Jakarta. Meetings about this year's
Ebtanas reportedly started in February. But it was only when time
was running out on May 1 that the Jakarta regional office of the
above ministry submitted for local government approval the per
student costs of the national exam.
These were Rp 55,650 at junior secondary level, Rp 75,100 at
general senior secondary level and Rp 115,400 for vocational
senior secondary schools.
They cleverly avoided requesting approval for a total budget.
Primary school exams come under local government and are not
dealt with here.
However, based on last year's (1998-1999) numbers of exam
participants and the detailed unit costs for 1999-2000, we can
arrive at a projected total cost.
By this calculation we arrive at a total figure of at least Rp
22 billion, simply to conduct final national exams for secondary
students in Jakarta.
This amount covers only what has been submitted to the
governor, but does not cover actual amounts that students and
parents have to pay to all the various levels of government
offices. This is definitely not chicken feed and clearly
represents a good source of "pocket money" for those involved.
The details are also equally interesting. To conduct a final
exam for some 294,000 students, the government has set up five
levels of organization: 1) regional, 2) district, 3) city, 4)
subdistrict, and 5) schools.
According to the officially approved budget, the regional
office demands Rp 6.7 billion, the district office Rp 238
million, the city Rp 95 million and the subdistrict Rp 2 billion.
Another breakdown is also an eye-opener. The total budget for
stationery, for four levels of government, excluding the amount
demanded for the schools, comes to Rp 2.6 billion.
This item is to cover correspondence costs. Even more amazing
is that the government committees at each level are given
allowances and honorarium. Here, the total bill for Jakarta
government officials is Rp 1.3 billion.
Worse still, as noted by the Private Schools Consortium, in
the provincial office of the ministries there are only 12
committee members and they meet about six times to discuss the
national exams.
Yet, they demand a total fee, consisting of allowances during
meetings and honorarium, of about Rp 556 million. It is up to the
reader to further calculate what each committee member collects
-- clearly a substantial annual harvest.
Here we have looked only at Jakarta. But, it should be made
clear that Jakarta is not an exception. This process is
duplicated across the country. And the relative gain of officials
and/or burden placed on students may well be greater elsewhere.
The Indonesian education system is a closed one with very
rigid rules. Children are required to progress through the system
in an orderly fashion, with promotion being determined by
performance at the previous level -- be it school level, or even
grades within each school. No skipping of grades is allowed.
At the end of each cycle -- for elementary school grade 6,
junior high school grade 3, and for senior high school also grade
3 -- children have to take the national exam to be promoted to
the next cycle.
Admission to junior high, senior high and university requires
a certificate that the applicant has taken the national exam.
Inability to show a certificate indicating that a student has
taken the national exam prohibits a school from accepting that
student, irrespective of whether the school is public or private.
Thus, neither schools nor students have the freedom to choose.
They are only forced to pay and sit for the exams.
We mentioned earlier that one of the claimed objectives of the
national exam is to control schools and serve as stimulus for
quality improvement. Yet, look at the results for 1998-1999
(Table).
Table: Numbers of Ebtanas participants and number of graduates,
average Ebtanas grade and graduation ratio for all students in
Indonesia, 1998-1999
School Type Participants Graduates Average Graduation
and Level Grade Ratio
---------------------------------------------------------
Public
---------------------------------------------------------
Junior
Secondary 1,571,012 1,546,216 5.75 98%
General
Senior
Secondary 461,086 446,547 3.99 97%
Vocational
Senior
Secondary 155,440 153,555 5.09 99%
---------------------------------------------------------
Private
---------------------------------------------------------
Junior
Secondary 775,314 768,900 5.22 99%
General
Senior
Secondary 351,303 344,156 3.19 98%
Vocational
Senior
Secondary 380,985 348,647 4.68 92%
---------------------------------------------------------
Source: based on statistics from the Ministry of Education,
obtained from the Internet.
The grading of national exams is based on numbers, on a scale
from 0 to 10. It should be clear from the table that average
grades are relatively low (on normal report cards, 6 is usually
considered a minimum passing grade).
Yet graduation rates are very high, all well in excess of 90
percent. The worst cases are among general senior high school
students who managed to score on average less than 4 on Ebtanas.
Yet between 97 percent and 98 percent still graduated.
Clearly, Ebtanas provides little or no control on the quality
of graduates. Requiring students to sit the exam in addition to
normal school testing and grading in order to graduate must,
thus, be open to question.
The low scores, and questions that have been raised over just
what the tests are measuring (not to mention perennial issues
related to leakage and manipulation), cast doubt on its value as
a screening tool for progression to higher levels in the
education system.
If screening beyond grades and other school-based performance
measures were required, it would be far more efficient for this
to be carried out by individual schools using whatever standards
they deem necessary.
For state universities, where selection is a major issue,
there is already a separate entrance exam, the UMPTN, which is
used as a basis for screening applicants.
Some more elite high schools even require applicants to take
special aptitude tests either designed by the school or through
private testing services.
Under such conditions, civil society should clearly question
the value of Ebtanas. Particularly if, as we suggest, it's
primary purpose is to keep the bureaucracy in pocket money and,
thereby, hold children at ransom.
The writers are social science researchers on human resource
development issues at the private Insan Hitawasana Sejahtera
Foundation in Jakarta.