Do not Stop at National Exam

Kompas, page 12

Regional administrations are required to seriously follow up on the results of national examinations of junior high (SMP) and high school/vocational high school (SMA/SMK) and equivalents in their respective regions. Interventions to schools and teachers for the preparation of national exams have shown to support the curriculum’s accomplishment and completeness. This was stated by the Head of Education Assessment Center, Research and Development Agency of the Ministry of Education and Culture Nizam, in Jakarta, Thursday (15/6).

Nizam said the implementation of the SMP and SMA/SMK and equivalents national exams of integrity continues to increase thanks to the massive computer-based national exams (UNBK) rather than the paper and pencil-based national exam (UNKP). This year, the SMP national exam integrity index rose 8.3 points nationally.

Member of the Education National Standards Board, Teuku Ramli Zakaria, said there are still many regional administrations that have not reviewed the results of the UN.  Actually, the UN results should become the basis for designing teacher training so as to improve lessons in the classroom.

Director General of Primary and Secondary Education Kemdikbud Hamid Muhammad said, every year the results of the UN are sent to the regional administrations (pemda), complete with the analysis of each school. However, until now he does not have an instrument to encourage pemda to follow up on UN results. In fact, education is also the responsibility of pemda.

Meanwhile, Head of Research and Development Agency Kemdikbud Totok Suprayitno said, the UN is used to measure the achievement of student learning outcomes and to measure the learning process of teachers.  So, there is a diagnostic of what materials and what competencies have not been reached.