T

he Jakarta Police say they are coordinating with the Jakarta Education Agency to help keep exam sheets from leaking during the National Examinations (UN), which start on Monday.

The police also say they will provide security for children now being arrested in penitentiaries for juveniles.

'Schools have asked police not only to guard exam and answer sheets, but also maintain security during the exam,' Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto said on Friday, adding police would leave cheating issues
to schools.

Rikwanto said police officers were also ready to help guard the exam for juveniles currently being imprisoned.

The Indonesian Commission on Child Protection (KPAI) chairman M. Ihsan said all children who were now behind bars had a right to participate in the exam.

'All children have their rights to education no matter what they have done. Children who are now under arrest will also have to continue their life when they are released,' he told The Jakarta Post.

He said the Education Agency had provided those children in the juvenile penitentiary in Tangerang with teachers prior to the exam to make them prepared.

KPAI, he said, also had asked the Education Agency and the Education and Culture Ministry to prepare the exam for all children in detention centers in the capital and beyond.

Rostien Ilyas, an executive at a government-sanctioned task force for child protection, said the administration should provide children in detention centers with a separate space outside the centers to keep them focused.

He said that, although the agency had offered such an option, it had yet to be regulated.

Jakarta Education Agency's Taufik Yudi Mulyanto earlier said the agency promised no leaks of exam and answer sheets during the exam by using similar measures to the ones it applied last year, prompting doubts among critics.

Taufik said that there would be 20 different lists of questions this year to minimize the leaks and cheating.

Last year, there were only five variations of exam sheets.

In response to the agency's measures, Retno Listyarti of the Indonesian Teachers Union Federation (FSGI) said people would always find a way to cheat, no matter what, so long as the results of the exam determine the academic future of a student. (tam)