Panca Nugraha and Markus Makur, The Jakarta Post, Mataram/Timika | Tue, 06/16/2009 1:15 PM
West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) recorded a slight increase in the percentage of its senior high school students passing this year’s final national exams.
But the worst news was that at least 13 schools in the province saw every one of its students fail the examinations.
Speaking to reporters Monday in the provincial capital Mataram, NTB education, youth and sport office head Lalu Hirjan said more than 52,000 students from senior high schools in the province had passed, including around 7,675 from vocational schools.
“The rate of students passing this year’s exams at senior high schools was 84.67 percent, a slight increase from last year’s 83.89 percent. For vocational schools, the rate was down to 76.3 percent from 78 percent in 2008,” he said.
It was “quite a good achievement”, particularly considering the minimum benchmark grade for a pass was increased from 5.25 in 2008 to 5.5 this year.
Hirjan said however that 13 of the 274 senior high schools in NTB saw every single one of their students fail the final exams.
“The latest information we have received from regencies and municipalities in NTB is that there are as many as 13 schools where all students did not pass.
“We are still gathering data to identify these schools and their locations,” he said.
Hirjan could not specify the cause for this high rate of failure in certain schools.
He said his provincial office would call for a meeting with regency offices to evaluate the overall achievements of students across NTB.
Meanwhile in Mimika regency, Papua, reports suggest that only 15 of the total 95 students at the Tiga Raja senior high school passed the April exams.
Tigal Raja school principal Pramana blamed a possible technical factor for the low passing rate of his students.
One theory floated was that the students did not indicate their answers with “thick marks”, so the computer could not read their answers. The government applied the computerization system to check students’ answer sheets.
“Compared to the previous year, the percentage of students passing the exam was very low, although we ran trial papers three times before they sat the finals,” Pramana said.
Mimika medium education head Yesaya Sombuk expressed concerns over the low passing rate of Tiga Raja students.
“It’s a sadness on the part of the Mimika education office,” he said.
Yeyasa said several of the students and their parents had vented anger at his office.
Overall, the pass rate for students in Mimika was 90 percent, he said.
Yeyasa criticized the hike in the benchmark pass grade, saying for some Indonesian students the level was clearly too high.
He urged the central government to allow schools to check their own answer sheets to ease students concerns.
For those students who failed the exams, the government has allowed them to take repeat exams known as the Package C program, or national equality exams, scheduled for June 23-26, 2009.
