Senior High School Exams Mostly Trouble Free

The Jakarta Post, page 3

Although the government has received a number of complaints related to allegedly illicit practices, regions have otherwise reported a relatively smooth implementation of the national exams for senior high schools students starting on Monday.

As of Monday afternoon, the Culture and Education Ministry had received 17 complaints from various regions, eight of which were related to alleged leaks of material and answer keys in Sumatera and Java.

Ministry inspector general Daryanto told the press on Monday that the government was “careful” in investigating the reports because it was still unclear whether the alleged violations took place during the computer-based or paper-based test.

Daryanto said those who reported to the ministry did not specify whether they found the practices in the computer-based or the paper-based test. Basically there should be no cheating in the computer-based test, as schools can only open the material 30 minutes before the exams start.

When introducing the computer-based exams in 2014, the government was optimistic that the exams were not vulnerable to cheating, although annual reports, especially from the Indonesian Ombudsman, have shown that their implementation has yet to be free from malpractice.

This year also marks the third year the national exam scores will not used to determine student’s graduation. The government has introduced this year the national standardized school exams (USBN) to replace school exams after discovering that many schools had fabricated their scores to ensure graduation.