Letter: Problem with the assessment system

It is interesting following the comments on education, particularly comments on exams at the moment. The latest were statements made by the National Education Ministry that cheating occurs because teachers are under pressure to see everyone pass.

Nearly everyone passes except a few. It would be unlikely for teachers to not know who these students would be before the tests began. They would or could also know the reasons why and talk to parents, etc. The pressure lies elsewhere though. It is the school average that counts. The reputation, the enrollment demands and size of government contributions, to mention a few factors, depend on this.

The biggest problem with the current assessment system is that it controls the curriculum. Schools may be free to develop their curricula but that really doesn’t count for much when all the pressure is on whether students can answer those test questions in a short time frame. The curriculum and methods used will be focused on that result.

Drilling and simulation tests are the best way to improve this result. Forget about learning to think creatively and critically, developing entrepreneurship, character, etc. The exam score pressure will help develop the character of course. But in a way, isn’t that what Indonesian parents want?

These are things that cannot be learned in additional subjects, but must be integrated into all subjects, and perhaps be part of the so-called inclusive curriculum. And the evaluation must be able to accommodate that. Multiple choice and short textbook answer questions cannot do this. Students need to be able to express themselves, show reasoning, individuality and creativity.

They also need to be able to speak in Indonesian as well as any second languages, and do other tasks. If they don’t, their education will be passive and repetitive.

While the government appears to want to see this happen, it never responds to criticism of its exam policies, other than to say it is disappointed about people criticizing the national exam all the time. But improving the national exams could be achieved by varying the evaluation question methods, having oral sections and other tasks, etc.

This would require a lot more resources, organization and there would be many ways to sabotage it too, but it would allow the national education system to improve a lot and much more quickly than by distributing computers and selectively establishing higher standard schools.

Or perhaps is it that the powers that really make the decisions in fact want to make people that listen, repeat and copy, and not be critical and able to express themselves well? If everyone agrees with that, then just tell teachers that. Then they can all simplify their lessons to exam drills and exam time will be a happy harvesting time for the National Education Ministry.

Willem Kaijser
Kuta, Bali