Indonesian Students Finish Their Year With 'Unhealthy' Exams
A student of SMAN 1 in Bantul, Central Java, carries out his national exam in an ambulance. (JG Photo/Boy T. Harjanto)
Jakarta. Across Indonesia, high school seniors will be breathing a collective sigh of relief as the national final exams draw to a close this week.
But if an increasingly vocal chorus of educators and experts had its way, the students would never have to be subjected to the annual assessment that critics have long called an unnecessarily nerve-wracking ordeal.
"I've said from the very beginning that the national exam is not the right way to evaluate what students have learned during their time in school," says Mohammad Abduhzen, an education expert from the Paramadina University in Jakarta.
He contends that the series of multiple-choice tests, which students must pass as a requirement for graduating, is hardly the gauge for scholastic aptitude the government makes it out to be.
"The exams are made out to be an annual routine to show there is a strong commitment from the government to improve our education quality — when in fact it hasn't worked at all for years," he says.
Retno Listyarti, secretary-general of the Federation of Indonesian Teachers Associations (FSGI), says educators have been "protesting the system of the exam implementation for years now, but the government is acting as though there's no problem with the system."
The problems, she says, are legion: leaks of exam questions weeks before the papers are distributed to schools; students falling ill under the pressure of having to pass; ever-inventive ways of cheating by students, from smuggled cheat-sheets and mobile phones to sending in proxies; and sky-high pas rates of up to 100 percent across the country — which critics argue says very little about the quality of the exams to challenge students.
Retno, the principal of a state high school in Jakarta, says school officials are typically involved in leaking the answers to their students, on the rationale that the higher the pass rate at a given school, the more funding it will receive from the government.
Education Minister Mohammad Nuh has brushed off any claims of leaks, despite myriad reports of students downloading the filled-out answer sheets from the Internet or buying them from people offering them over text message and social media.
"Don't believe in all this talk about leaks," Nuh said at the start of the exams.
Undue stress
Students passing out from stress before and even during exams are common at this time of year.
Kompas.com reported that 15 students in Jember, East Java, were so stressed out before the exams began on Monday, that they became delirious. Five were unable to perform the exams.
Retno says cases such as these are an indictment against the exams, which she calls "an irrational way" to determine whether a student can graduate.
"There is abundant proof that the exams are unhealthy for the students, but the government seems happy to close its eyes to the reality," she says.
"The government doesn't see the core of the problem. Instead, it chooses to put on this show of strict supervision and security for the exams, which only makes things worse for the students. There's far too much pressure being brought to bear on the students just for the sake of a graduation certificate."
The government has in recent years made something of a spectacle about the way the exams are prepared and administered as it tries to clamp down on cheating, including using police escorts to transport the papers from printing companies to district and municipal education offices, and from there to the schools. It has also taken to posting armed police officers outside schools during the exams.
"Nowhere else in the world would you see a show of force for a school exam," Retno says.
"This excessive supervision only puts more of a psychological burden on the students, which increases their chance of failing the exams.
"So not only do they go into the exams terrified at the prospect of failing, but they also have to suffer this additional ill treatment. This is not healthy."
Cheating
For Jimmy Paat, an education expert from Jakarta State University (UNJ), the main problem with the exams is they have no value in determining a student's aptitude.
"Teachers' unions have been rejecting the idea of the exams since 2003, but the government keeps on implementing this despicable examination and spreading fear among students for years," he says.
"Since the very beginning, Education Ministry officials have failed to consider what effects the exams could have. It seems they couldn't hear.
"And now that the effects are right before us, they do something contrary to solve the problem, which I would argue doesn't solve the problem at all."
The effects, Jimmy says, can be seen primarily in the culture of cheating that has risen around the examinations.
"The cases of cheating aren't even a secret anymore. People are making money off of it because they know the very idea of the exams continue to terrify students, which in turn demotivates them from studying," he says.
"Students today are lazier than ever in our history. The need to pass is the main factor for the high prevalence of cheating among high school students."
"The exams should absolutely be eliminated from the national education policy," Jimmy continues.
"But as long as there's no concerted opposition to it from all education stakeholders, the government will continue to implement this system. It won't stop."
Rather than base a student's aptitude and future on the outcome of a set of multiple-choice tests, he proposes that teachers be responsible for the final evaluation of each student.
"The teachers know the students best, not the government with its question sheets," he says.
"These teachers know what they're doing. This system would have a high chance of success without causing depression and cheating among students. It'll be effective. If the current system continues, students will only grow less and less inclined to study. How do you get the students to enjoy studying when you present them with such a distressful method of learning?"
Threat to education
Mohammad of Paramadina agrees that the exams must be abolished for a system in which students are evaluated based on their work at school.
"There are still many ways to evaluate students' learning outcomes during their three years of high school. Teachers and schools can do such assessment," he says.
He also takes particular exception to the use of exams as determinants for university seats, replacing the entrance exams that for years had been administered by universities all over the country.
He argues that school-leaving tests are inherently different from those carried out by universities, and performing well in the former does not equate to a good result in the latter.
"The university entrance exam is geared more to critical thinking, whereas the high school exam is more of an evaluation," he says. "So why is the government doing this? It's just to show that the national exams are compatible with the new school curriculum introduced in 2013."
Mohammad warns that using the national exams in place of university entrance tests sets a dangerous precedent. "When you have students entering university based on the completely irresponsible results of the national exams, you risk diluting the quality of the university itself, which in turn has an impact on the quality of the national education system as a whole," he says.
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