National Exams to Stay in School
Jakarta. The government will keep the national examinations program for elementary and high schoolers after a controversial moratorium plan proposed by Education and Culture Minister Muhadjir Effendy was shelved.
During a closed cabinet meeting on Monday (19/12), President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said the national exams will go ahead, but with improvements.
“The president wants to keep the national examination for benchmarking the student development in the future,” Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung said at State Palace.
The government will focus on improving the quality and performance of teachers with certification programs and providing guidelines for the exam in an effort to equalize access and results across the country, Pramono said.
The move comes after the release of the 2015 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), an international index on student's achievements in reading, mathematics and science literacy.
The report, released every three years and covering 72 countries, saw Indonesia climbed slightly to 62 up from 71 in 2013.
“The president truly wants our students to be fighters not only on a local level, but also so they can compete in international levels,” Pramono said.
Earlier this year, Minister Muhadjir mulled a moratorium on the national examination program from next year, saying the exam should not be used to measure the entire national education system.
The plan was shot down by Vice President Jusuf Kalla who said the exams are necessary to maintaining quality.
National examinations program had been a specter for junior and senior high school students for decades until Muhadjir's predecessor, Anies Baswedan, decided to no longer use the exams result as the sole determinant of success or failure at school.
The exam, which is undertaken in the final year of schooling at elementary school, junior high school and high school, accounts for 60 percent of students' final assessment mark, with the remaining 40 percent is from school exam results and reports.
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