There are schools with zero passing rates.

JAKARTA, Republika -The 2008 National Exam results from high schools (SMA) and specialized high schools (SMK), which were announced on Saturday (6/14), are not yet satisfying. On the national level, the passing rate decreased from 93 percent to 92 percent. A couple of thousands of students failed, some schools even had zero passing rates for several majors. 

In Jakarta alone, as much as 7,991 high school and specialized high school students did not pass the 2008 National Exam. Participants of the exam that have not passed consisted of 4,416 high school students and 3,575 specialized high school students.

Meanwhile, from other areas it is reported that in each province there is an average of thousands of students that did not pass the National Exam. As an illustration, in Yogyakarta 4,143 did not pass, in North Sumatra 10,222 did not pass, in Bengkulu 3,215 did not pass, and in Kebumen 1,436 did not pass.

According to the Head of Mid- and Higher Level Education Department of Jakarta, Margani M Mustar, the passing rate of specialized high school students of this year’s National Exam has increased, on the other hand, the passing rate of the high school students has decreased. “This year’s National Exam results have in fact not been satisfying,” he said yesterday.

He stated that the high school and specialized high school National Exam in Jakarta was taken by 114,510 participants, consisting of  56,953 high school students, 57,515 specialized high school students, and 42 disabled high school students.

Participants that passed the National Exam reached a number of  52,537 high school students,  53,940 specialized high school students, and 42 disabled high school students.  

"The percentage of passing rate of high school students reached 92,25 percent, 93,78 for specialized high schools, and 100 percent for disabled high school students,” he follows.

Besides Jakarta, a number of other areas experienced a decrease in this year’s National Exam passing rate. There are even several schools which one-hundred percent of their students, for specific majors, failed.

One-hundred percent of the social major students of the Muhammadiyah High School in Tanjungpinang city, as much as 14 students, did not pass the National Exam.

While one-hundred percent of the students of the natural science major of the SMAN1 Rebang Tangkas, Kabupaten Way Kanan, Lampung Province, as much as 32 students, also did not pass the National Exam. “Such a thing has never happened in the previous years,” said Syafruddin, the Head of the local Lower and Mid-Level Education Department.

An authority at the Directorate General of the Lower and Mid-Level Education also confirmed that the passing rate of the National Exam participants in this year has decreased about one percent compared to last year’s rate. Last year’s passing rate was 93 percent, whereas this year’s rate reached 92 percent.

Via mail

The announcement of the results of the SMA/SMK/MA (Islamic high school) in Jakarta, according to Margani M Mustar, was made nationally on Saturday (6/14), through letters which were sent to each of the students’ address.

"The announcement through the mail has been practiced since several years ago. The aim is to contain the feeling of over-joy or over-sadness from the students. For example by channelling these emotions through graffiti painting or convoying around the main streets,” he said.

Margani also suspects that the increase of failed students of the 2008 National Exam in comparison to previous years is because of the additional lessons for SMA/SMK/MA from three to six lessons.

Last year, only three lessons were examined: Bahasa Indonesia, mathematics, and English. Whereas in the 2008 National Exam, these were added with physics, biology, and chemistry (natural science) and geography, sociology, and economics for the social major. “However, the causes will have to be analyzed further,” he says.  

The National Education Standardization Body (BSNP), which acts as organizing institution of the 2008 National Exam, adds Margani, defines a number of criteria, which are: participants are proclaimed having passed the National Examination if the minimum average score is 5.25 for all the lessons being examined without any scores under 4.25.

Especially for SMK students, the score of the profession competency lesson is a minimum of 7.00 and is used to calculate the average score of the National Exam of the corresponding SMK. Nevertheless, in accordance with the Governmental Regulation (PP) No. 19 Year 2005 on the National Standard of Education (SNP), the mechanism of deciding the success of the students to pass is chosen by each school, in this case a decision of the Teacher’s Council Meeting.

In this Governmental Regulation, it is explained that a student is acclaimed to pass by the school, if the referred student has completed all the learning programs and achieved a satisfactory grade in the final evaluation for the lesson group religion and good behaviour, civil service and personality, manners, physical education, as well as sports. bur/mur/nln/wab/ant/ayh