The House of Representatives has stood its ground and maintains that students who failed the final exams should not be allowed to sit the tests again.
“We held a meeting with the National Education Ministry last night and we insisted on refusing re-examinations to be held at those schools,” the deputy chairman of the House Commission X on Education, Heri Akhmadi, told The Jakarta Post in Jakarta on Wednesday.
The National Education Standard Agency (BSPN), an independent body authorized to administer the national exams which reports directly to the ministry, said recently it would allow students from 34 high schools to take the exams again from June 8 to 12.
The figure released by the agency was significantly higher than that reported by legislators Monday, when they said every student sitting the final exams at 19 high schools had failed.
“The education minister [Bambang Sudibyo] has agreed to delay the planned remedial test until an investigation into allegations of widespread cheating in the exams is conducted,” Heri said.
According to results from the House investigation, the 100 percent failure rate occurred because students tried to access the answers before the test, but apparently found the wrong solutions.
The ministry was scheduled to hold a press conference Wednesday morning to clarify the matter, but it was cancelled at the last minute without explanation.
“We want to avoid confusion and misunderstanding. We need to look deeper into the matter. We cannot confirm on the test rerun either or anything else because the official result has not been announced yet,” the ministry’s head of public relations, Muhadjir, said.
“We are still compiling all the data. We do not want to make any official statement because the risk is too great.”
Muhadjir also refused to comment on whether the ministry had received the agency’s report detailing the alleged cheating.
The ministry’s director of high schools, Sungkowo, said to Antara the ministry would consider the announcement that students from 34 schools had failed as rumor until the official results were announced on June 16.
Heri claimed the ministry’s reluctancy to officially acknowledge how many schools had a 100 percent failure rate did not make sense.
“The ministry knows the truth about the findings, but refuses to admit it. They are using the same excuse over and over again, that being we should wait for the official results from the exam,” he said.
“But that is not the point, is it? The fact is there were indeed findings by the BSNP of potential widespread cheating during the exams, and the ministry should have done something about it as soon as it received the report from the agency.”
Education Coalition activist Lody Paat told the Post that allowing students to repeat their examinations would not solve the problem.
“What happens after the examinations are held a second time?
Can we guarantee that the same disaster will not happen again in the future? What we need to consider now is how to fix the national education system, not just look at who is guilty this time around,” he said. (hdt)
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