Mohammad Abduhzen from the Institute for Education Reform explained on Monday (11/12), that the statement issued by the National Education Ministry on National Examination (UN) stipulated that the biggest authorities in evaluation are still in the hands of teachers or schools; however, in reality it is very different. Even though students have a good achievement, the student might fail to graduate if the national examination score is below the passing grade. Other considerations are no longer important.

“If the national examination did not determine graduation, the scoring of the national examination should be handed to schools. Schools are allowed to decide the final decision by taking into consideration various aspects beyond the cognitive one. If students’ capacity has increased during the learning process it is already a good sign. Unfortunately, UN has become the final decisive point,” he said.

As long as the UN score is not accumulated with other scores, Abduhzeh added, teachers would not dare to have a more independent consideration in evaluating their students.   Head of Indonesian Independent Teachers Federation (FGII) Suparman concurred. Graduation should be based on a series of evaluation by teachers or school, starting from behavior, morals, school exam and national exam.

If school exams include writing essays, teachers would be able to carry out a comprehensive evaluation. School exam also reflect students’ capacity in absorbing knowledge. This is related to the condition of school facilities and infrastructure and teachers competency, which in reality there are a lot of disparities among regions; unlike the national examination which used standardized problems which tends to overlook those disparities. “Not all regions have the same condition. Like the English language instruction. Some schools do not have any language lab but they have to face the same standard,” he said.