Wardiman dismisses education warning

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Education and Culture Wardiman Djojonegoro yesterday played down the warning that the quality of education in Indonesia is declining.

Wardiman challenged his critics to prove their theory that the low grades received by Jakarta students in exams held in April indicated that the overall quality of education in Indonesia is in bad shape.

"They should come up with scientific data to back their assumption," Wardiman told reporters after granting scholarships to 328 students from all over Indonesia.

Local newspapers reported on Thursday that despite slight improvements, Jakarta's high school students achieved very low scores in April's national exams.

The average score of about 70 percent of Jakarta's 558 public high school students was only 4.6 for the seven subjects tested, according to the Jakarta provincial education office.

The schools whose students' scores averaged only 4.6 were those categorized as "low class" schools.

Twenty percent of the public schools categorized as "medium- class" had an average score of 6.2 for each subject, while the "upbeat" schools, making up the remaining 10 percent, averaged 7.5.

The news prompted an education expert and a senior legislator, Wuryanto, to call on the government and teachers to do something to improve the situation.

Wuryanto said that if anything is to blame for this worrisome development, it is the learning-teaching process and not the curriculum, as some people believe.

"The curricula were made involving specialists. It is also unfair to suspect that the questions in the exam were far too difficult for the students, because they were made based on the curricula," he was quoted by Kompas as saying.

Wardiman doubted the accuracy of the Jakarta education office's report. He said some senior high schools performed better this year than they did last year.

"I can show you the schools whose students scored better this year," he said.

It was Marsetio Donoseputro, a member of the House of Representatives in charge of education affairs, who raised fears that schools outside Jakarta could have done a lot worse than Jakarta's.

Marsetio, a former rector of Surabaya's Airlangga University, said he could not imagine how students were doing in their exams in remote areas like Irian Jaya and Kalimantan, where facilities are inadequate.

The minister said it would be misleading to judge the overall quality of education in Indonesia based only on the results of this year's exams.

Yesterday, Wardiman handed over scholarships from PT Jasaraharja Putera insurance company to 144 elementary school students, 83 junior high school students, 80 senior high school students and 21 university students. (31)