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n Monday, the three-day national exams for high school students commenced. The anxious, focused young faces among the country'€™s nearly 2 million exam takers represented the immediate challenge faced by this year'€™s outgoing and incoming administration. As past experience shows, only a small portion of high school graduates will go on to higher education while the rest join the throngs of job seekers.

It is of little comfort that the open unemployment rate looked fairly low at 6.25 percent last August out of the labor force of over 118 million people, even though it was an increase from 5.92 percent in February 2013. In Indonesia, the issue has always been the larger problem of underemployment, with millions working long hours with barely subsistence-level incomes in the absence of traditional welfare. Economists have also been worrying about the widening income gap.

The incomes of high school graduates have not shown to be necessarily lower than those of local university alumni; contributing to lengthy public debate over whether classes until the late afternoon, in which teachers hammer so much information from so many school subjects into students, are remotely worth everyone'€™s time and energy, compared to graduates'€™ performance in the real world. Not to mention extra lessons and special drills to face the exams.

A review of the national curricula came about following criticism that it had not improved life skills or character building. University graduates are among the unemployed, while many self- starting entrepreneurs have mere middle and high school educations.

The debate over the national exams itself, whether it benefits as a benchmark across such a disparate archipelago, is larger than the excess of imposing a single, main grade for years of studying a uniform curricula not always relevant to local needs, has resulted in the decision to keep it this year at least. National exam results and exit exam tests are weighted 60 percent and 40 percent, respectively, while teachers'€™ unions want more autonomy for schools in their respective areas. The exams themselves are also widely deplored for their irregularities and suspicions of corruption, among other things, leading to reports of traded answer sheets.

Thus the incoming government will not only have to boost the economy but also provide jobs, funding for training and more credit for small-scale upstarts for those who will not continue on to higher education.

It will also need to continue to work with experts to improve the curricula and the most suitable way to grade students. Today, with the controversial curricula changes, students are now pouring over puzzling issues of incorporating religion into math and science. Politicians have been banking on first-time voters, including millions taking the exams from Monday through Wednesday.

Many of these youth went to the polls on April 9, and many others stayed home, saying that these politicians would not make a difference to their future.

They will only be proven wrong if those jostling for power eventually give serious thought to improving education, which is relevant to their future.