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ducation and Culture Minister Mohammad Nuh faced the music on Friday when lawmakers of the House of Representatives' Commission X overseeing education censured him for the delays in the national examinations for high school students in 11 provinces.

The commission said the ministry's failure to hold the exams simultaneously had put the legitimacy of the exam results into question and asked the minister to declare that all students had passed the exams.

Such an announcement, the lawmakers said, should be made by the minister as it was his responsibility.

'You said that this was your responsibility and that you would conduct an evaluation. That is a normative [statement]. I want all students to be regarded as having passed the exams,' Eko Hendro Purnomo of the National Mandate Party (PAN) told the minister during the hearing.

The lawmakers slammed Nuh for failing to ensure that PT Ghalia Indonesia Printing, a printing company that had won the tender to print and distribute exam materials, was able to do its job. The firm's failure to print and distribute exam materials on time forced 1.1 million students at 5,109 schools in 11 provinces to take the tests three days late.

While their fellows took their exams on April 15, high school students in Bali, East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara, South Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, Gorontalo, North Sulawesi, West Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi and Central Sulawesi had to wait until the following Thursday to sit the tests as PT Ghalia failed to meet the deadline for delivery of the materials.

Lawmakers argued that it was unfair that the affected students had faced uncertainties and pressures caused by the delay. 'The government must be held responsible,' said Anton Sukartono Suratto, a lawmaker from the Democratic Party.

 'The national examinations were a failure. We must carefully consider whether the results should be used as an admission requirement for university admission or simply as an instrument to assess students' academic performances,' said Nasrullah, another PAN lawmaker.

Several lawmakers went further and called for an overhaul of the implementation of the national exams, the legality of which they questioned. 'Articles 57 and 58 of the law on national education grant schools, and not the government, the authority to evaluate the learning outcomes of students. Thus, holding the national exams is against the law,' lawmaker Reni Marlinawati of the United Development Party (PPP) told the hearing.

She said the ministry should return the authority to hold exams to each school because only the schools understood the capabilities of their students.

Responding to the lawmakers' request, Nuh said that his ministry could not arbitrarily annul the result of the exams as it would be unfair on students who took the tests on the scheduled day.

'We must carefully think through such suggestions because it would be unfair for the other 22 provinces where exams were not delayed. I'm afraid it might also cause more problems. Moreover, there wasn't chaos in all the 11 provinces because the exams in Bali took place smoothly,' he said.

Nuh added that PT Ghalia would cover any costs that schools had incurred due to the company's failure. 'We promise that things will be much better in the coming years.'

Previously the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) said it had launched a special investigation into the national exams fiasco. The ministry disbursed Rp 644.24 billion (US$66.29 million) for the national exams, with a total of Rp 120.59 billion allocated for both junior and senior high schools, and Rp 85.57 billion for elementary school examinations.

The Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (FITRA) alleged that the tender for the printing and distribution of exam materials could have been marred by irregularities since PT Ghalia had offered the highest price for the project procurement for the 11 provinces worth more than Rp 22 billion. According to FITRA, the printing company should not have won the tender due to the high price it submitted for