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Elementary school national examinations run smoothly
Touching the future: Students with vision impairments Fitriyani Sukmawati (right) and Septayunuring Pangestu touch the question sheets of the national examination for elementary school in Semarang on Monday
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span class="inline inline-center">Touching the future: Students with vision impairments Fitriyani Sukmawati (right) and Septayunuring Pangestu touch the question sheets of the national examination for elementary school in Semarang on Monday. The two students of the Dria Adi school for the disabled (SLB) are among hundreds of thousands of students across the country taking the exam. JP/Suherdjoko
Thousands of elementary school students, including those with special needs, from across the archipelago undertook national examinations on Monday, without any reports of cheating or leakages.
In Semarang, the exams were taken by over 25,000 students of 592 elementary schools (SD) and Islamic elementary schools (MI).
That excluded 26 students of five schools for the disabled (SLB) and 109 participants of the Kejar Paket A program (elementary school equivalent) from 20 community learning centers (PKBM) across the municipality.
Semarang City Education Agency head Bunyamin said the subjects tested on Monday were Indonesian, mathematics and natural science.
'Teachers of sixth grade classes are not allowed to do the monitoring,' he added.
In Jayapura, Papua, the exams were joined by over 5,000 students. Jayapura Deputy Mayor Nur Alam was seen visiting SLB Jayapura, although the school had only one student taking the national exams.
'I visited the school because a school like this is in need of attention,' Nur said.
He expressed gladness and hope that the central government would give special incentives to the teachers of the school for their expertise in teaching students with special needs.
The school has six sixth-grader students but only Franklin Suebu, 15, participated in the national exams as the only one capable of reading and writing.
'Franklin is deaf but he can read and write. Others cannot read and write so they are only allowed to join the school exams and not the national exams,' the school's deputy headmaster R. Sisworo said.
He said four students of the school joined the national exams last year and all passed.
Jayapura Education Agency head I Wayan Buadiasa said that 5,226 students from 98 schools took the exams this year. They were divided into 13 clusters.
Meanwhile in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), the first day of the national exams was reported to have run smoothly although three questions on the question sheets were found to be incomplete.
'We have made a report on it and told the schools to pass the incomplete questions,' Kupang Municipal Education Agency head Jerhans Ledoh told reporters, Monday.
Separately, NTT Provincial Education and Culture Agency head Piter Manuk said that nearly 125,000 students from the province's 23 regencies/cities joined the exams this year.
In Gorontalo, over 23,000 elementary school students joined the national exams. They came from 926 elementary schools, 132 Islamic elementary schools and Kejar Paket A programs from six regencies/cities.
'Thank God, the first day of exams ran smoothly. No shortages of question sheets have been reported thanks to having local companies print the sheets,' Gorontalo Provincial Education, Youth and Sports Agency head Weni Liputo told the The Jakarta Post, Monday.
Weni expressed hope the national exams would run smoothly and honestly until Wednesday.
' Djemi Amnifu in Kupang and Syamsul Huda M. Suhari in Gorontalo contributed to this story.
