Kompas (27/04/07): The government will raise the pass grade for equivalency education program’s national examination (UN-PK) examination. The pass grade of equivalency exam will be equal to that of formal school even though there are more subjects tested in the equivalency program. Equivalency program is not a lifeboat for students who failed in the national examination. 

Director for Equivalency Education at the Directorate General for Non Formal School at the Ministry of National Education, Ella Yulaelawati, said in a press conference on Thursday (26/4), that there will be 5 subjects tested in the Packet A exam (elementary school level); 6 subjects in Packet B exam (junior high school level) and six for students in social sciences and seven for students of exact sciences of Packet C program (senior high school level).

A student passes the equivalency exam if the average grade is 5 with no score below 4.25; or if he or she gets at least 4 in one of the subjects tested, average grade has to be at least 5.33. These pass grades are higher that that of last year.

In the equivalency education program’s national examination in 2006, pass grade was set at 3.01 for the entire subjects tested. The total passing grades for all the subjects tested was 22.50 (Packet A), 28.50 (Packet B), 28.50 (Social Sciences Packet C), and 33.25 (Natural Sciences Packet C).

Different subjects
Independent learning competency is acknowledged in the equivalency education program. There are two different subjects in this program, namely functional skill and professional skill.

38,209 participants have registered to join the Packet A exam; 156,169 for Packet B program and 170,.609 for Paket C program. Most of them were studying in Islamic boarding schools (pondok pesantren) and in home schooling communities.

Director General for Non-Formal Education, Ace Suryadi, said, the implementation of such a standard showed that the quality of non-formal education is equal to that of formal education. If necessary, non-formal education should be better because it is more flexible, thematic, inductive, and the test are more focused on (practical) competency rather than academic (competency),” he added. (INE)