Koran Tempo (21/06/06): Many people might consider the high passing rate in the recent national examination as good news. This year’s passing rate for senior high, vocational and Islamic high schools has increased dramatically to 91.43 percent from 79.81 percent last year. The average score also rose significantly.

However, we should remain critical with those impressive figures. We have to bear in mind that this program contains a lot of problems. We share the view of the experts who prefer to focus on teachers’ evaluation and other education facilities, rather than on students as output.  In reality, schools are competing to increase their passing rate hoping to get more assistance from the government.

Many people consider that the national examination project contravened the Law no. 20/ 2003 on National Education System, which stipulates that assessment of students’ academic achievement should be carried out by educators, and not by the state or the government. Therefore, it should be carried out by an independent body. Related to this debate, this daily supports the plan to file a class action suit against the government.

In this reform era, education should be focused on developing competency-based curriculum. The essence of democratization in education with the implementation of school-based management provides boarder autonomy for schools and educators. Therefore, the rights to determine student’s graduation should be restored to schools, not the government who administers it through the national examination which implicateds more disadvantages.

Moreover, this year’s national examination highlights a paradox in education. Examination which was initially intended to evaluate students’ capacity has in reality become an indicator of the educators’ morality.  In several regions, for instance, teachers who were given tasks to increase students’ passing rate have been employing all the possible means to achieve the target.

This high pass rate indeed covers shames and disgraces in education. Practices of leaking answers (among others via SMS text message, even though the answer is sometimes wrong) are still rampant. The motives are diverse, from money to avoiding bad stigma when a region’s pass rate is low. Some of these perpetrators have been caught red-handed in several regions, including in Banten and Bandung, West Java.

Therefore, we should return the rights to evaluate students’ performance to educators. Moreover, school exams are still maintained for other subjects (religious instructions, civil instruction and sports), and teachers qualitative judgment which also determine students’ graduation. National Examination should only serve to diagnose student’s capacity. Therefore, it would not turn to a common effort to swell the passing rate.