Private firm granted exam printing

The Bali Education Agency has appointed a private printing company to print the question and answer sheets to be used in the upcoming final examinations for junior and senior high school students.

In previous academic years the task was carried out by the state-owned Percetakan Negara printing company.

Agency head Ida Bagus Anom said an East Java-based private company earned the appointment after scoring highest in the required tender process.

“The company offers a very good price and we have also taken into account its ability to perform the assigned task in a professional manner,” he said.

Anom dodged the question about whether the switch from Percetakan Negara to a private company was triggered by last year’s final exam brouhaha partially blamed on the former’s inferior performance and recurring mix ups.

He promised that the educational authority would impose stricter monitoring measures to prevent similar mistakes from taking place.

“We will tightly supervise the whole printing process to ensure smoother final examinations for the students,” he said.

Last year’s final examination was marred by a series of mistakes related to the question and answer sheets distributed to students. Sheets that were allocated to the Denpasar region were sent to another region and vice versa.

In other cases, a large number of students received damaged or incomplete question sheets.

In several schools, students had to wait for a long time while officials from the local education agency frantically photocopied the correct version of the sheets.

The mistakes caused a public uproar and Bali Governor Made Mangku Pastika ordered the education agency to file a formal complaint against Percetakan Negara.

The mistakes were also blamed for the drop in the number of students who succeeded in passing the final exam.

The island recorded a 99.92 percent pass rate in final exams for high school students in 2009.

The pass rate dropped to 97.25 percent in 2010.

Despite the drop, Bali still recorded the highest pass rate nationwide and Denpasar student Shelly Silvia Bintang scored the country’s highest exam grade for high school students.

“The printing process will be completed by April 10 at the latest. The distribution of the sheets to every region will be secured by the police and closely supervised by the agency officials and members of the independent supervisory team,” Anom said.

Final exams for high school students will be held April 18-21 and April 25-28 for junior high schools’ students.