VP Kalla Says National Exam Revamp Will 'Spoil' Students
Jakarta. Vice President Jusuf Kalla said on Monday that he disagreed with changes to Indonesia's education system that now give schools sole control over students' graduation and rely less on national exams.
Education Minister Anies Baswedan announced a major overhaul of Indonesia's national exams earlier this year, drastically reducing the significance of the controversial national test.
The exams, which were previously the main determinant for whether a student moved up a grade or graduated, will continue to be administered to students in the sixth, ninth and 12th grades.
The new evaluation scheme is ostensibly designed to consider students’ overall performance, and those who do not pass the exams can retake them the following year.
The program has run afoul of Kalla, however, who claimed it would only spoil Indonesian students. He said the national exam program encouraged students to study hard and be disciplined.
Critics have long argued that the exams encourage rote learning and memorization aimed at achieving a high score, rather than depth or comprehension. Baswedan admitted there would be challenges with the new system, which is to be implemented this year.
He said giving schools autonomy to mark their own students' exams may cause some problems for in-school corruption, but he hoped that overall the program would be a success.
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