TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsHigh school students ready for tests
Gearing up: An IT technician arranges computers that will be used for Mondayâs national exams at SMU 1 state senior high school in Surabaya, East Java, on Sunday
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
G
span class="caption">Gearing up: An IT technician arranges computers that will be used for Monday's national exams at SMU 1 state senior high school in Surabaya, East Java, on Sunday. For the first time, students in selected cities will take the exam on computers. Antara/Zabur Karuru
Hundreds of thousands of high school students, including a pregnant one, are ready to take the national exam on Monday.
In East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), 65,326 students in the province's 22 regencies/cities are expected to sit the exam. They comprise 49,591 high school students and 15,809 vocational high school students from 438 schools. Among them is a pregnant student from Sikka
regency.
NTT Education Agency head Peter Manuk said the agency would allow pregnant students to sit the exam.
'They are welcome to take the exam. We will not ban them. It is a right to have access to education,' Peter told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.
He said he had received a report on the pregnant student from Sikka. The student had been previously banned from sitting the exam.
Sikka Education, Youth and Sports Agency head Yohanes Rana confirmed the earlier ban but said that it had been issued by the respective school committee.
He also said that another pregnant student did not sit the exam last year although she had not been banned.
In 2012, about 80 students in the province missed the first day of the exam, with 73 of them withdrawing from taking the exam on account of pregnancy. The absent students hailed from Kupang, East Sumba and North Timor Tengah.
The Post reported in 2009 that 11 students in NTT were barred from sitting the national exam for being pregnant out of wedlock.
For the first time, the exam will be administered two ways this year, through a computer-based test (CBT) system that will be applied in selected schools and conventional tests.
Some 20 high schools and senior vocational high schools in a number of regions in North Sumatra will administer the exam through the CBT system.
Head of North Sumatra Education Agency's high school education division, August Sinaga, said the schools that would apply the CBT system had been verified by the Culture and Elementary and Secondary Education Ministry after trials were conducted in the schools.
He said that several schools chose not to apply the CBT system over fears that applying it would influence students' exam scores.
'Many schools are equipped with the facilities to apply the CBT system, but they are afraid to apply it due to possible computer errors, blackouts and other reasons,' August told a press conference at his office.
Meanwhile, the Cianjur administration in West Java said that it was unable to apply the CBT system due to a lack of facilities.
'Not all schools have computers and Internet, especially in [remote] areas,' Cianjur Deputy Regent Suranto said, as quoted by Antara news agency on Monday.
