T

he Indonesian Ombudsman has revealed that, based on public complaints received by the institution, there are several problems in the education sector that urgently need to be resolved.

Ombudsman commissioner Budi Santoso said that between 2011-2014, his institution received numerous reports from the public in relation to education, which had been categorized into six major issues.

'€œThe issues are regarding teacher certification, student enrollment systems, national exams, school operational assistance [BOS] funds, school violence and school committees,'€ said Budi.

He said that teacher certification and school violence were the two issues that had been reported most by teachers and parents and emphasized that Culture and Elementary and Secondary Education Minister Anies Baswedan should take action.

Based on the Ombudsman'€™s data, 27.1 percent of 490 public reports received in 2014 complained about petty cash demanded by officials from the central government or regional administrations in student-admission or teacher-certification processes.

'€œWe have found that the public was asked for amounts of money in exchange for having their children enrolled in some schools, which sadly also happened in prestigious public schools in Jakarta,'€ Budi said, without naming particular schools.

The Indonesian Ombudsman also highlighted national exams, which continue to be marked with numerous problems, especially the widespread leaking of exam questions every year.

For several years, parents and students have complained about the country'€™s national exams system, arguing that students should not be judged by a single examination and that the results did not reflect students'€™ true capacity.

In 2006, a group of teachers filed a lawsuit at the Central Jakarta District Court demanding the abolition of national exams. The court granted the request and the government appealed the verdict. In 2009, the Supreme Court rejected the government'€™s appeal, saying that the examinations could only be held if their implementation was improved.

At a conference on Wednesday, Budi said the Ombudsman recommended that if the minister decided to uphold national exams for the next academic year, he should establish a system to maintain the security of exam questions and make sure that the exams were not the only criteria used for students to graduate or to be accepted into higher education.

'€œThere are also other problems such as the non-transparent allocation of BOS funds by schools, endless cases of school violence and school committees'€™ failure to raise schools'€™ quality,'€ Budi continued.

Contacted separately, the Culture and Elementary and Secondary Education Ministry'€™s inspector general, Haryono Umar, said that his ministry had been working with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to handle all forms of corruption in the education sector.

Haryono said that in August the ministry and the KPK held surprise inspections at a number of education agencies and caught local officials misappropriating their authority by asking for money.

'€œThis coordination will be maintained to minimize fund violations,'€ Haryono told The Jakarta Post.

He also hinted at the ministry'€™s plan to issue a new policy related to national exams in the near future. '€œA team is still studying the national exams issue and I believe that the ministry will issue a new policy about that,'€ he said.

'€” JP/Indra Budiari