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eventeen-year-old Oliver Sianturi, in his final year at SMAN 8 senior high school in Bukit Duri, South Jakarta, said he believed the national exam was unnecessary if it was only used to measure the quality of schools.

“It is said [the national exam scores] are used as requirements to enter state universities, but the scores are actually not a determining factor. The national exam does not affect admission into universities,” Oliver said on Saturday.

Education and Cultural Minister Muhadjir Effendy said previously the ministry had decided to suspend the implementation of the national exam at all educational levels starting next year, pending presidential instruction issued by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.

Hamdany Salsabil, a 15-year-old student in his final year at SMPN 3 junior high school in Gamping, Sleman, Yogyakarta, said he welcomed the decision by the ministry but said the government had to change the current system in which national exam scores are used to enter senior high school.

During a visit to Makassar, South Sulawesi, on Friday, Jokowi claimed that the ministry’s decision would be deliberated in a meeting involving “a number of ministers and stakeholders” to decide on steps to improve the quality of education in the country.

“There should be a meeting to discuss the [national] exam’s standards,” Jokowi said after disseminating his tax amnesty policy in a hotel in Makassar.

Muhadjir, who took his current position after a cabinet reshuffle in July, said imposing a moratorium on national exams was aimed at implementing one of the aspects of Jokowi’s political agenda called Nawacita, stipulating that the exams would not be used as a gauge for evaluating the country’s education system.

In the absence of the national exams, which are overseen by the Education and Cultural Ministry, Muhadjir said exams would be carried out by regional administrations based on the division of labor related to education management.

The ministry claimed the suspension was based on a 2009 Supreme Court verdict stipulating that the government had to improve education in the country before implementing the exams again.

The verdict, which upholds a Jakarta High Court ruling on an appeal filed by the Advocacy Team for National Exam Victims and the Education Forum, stated that the government had failed to “fulfill and protect the human rights of its citizens who became victims of the implementation of the national exam”.

The Supreme Court also ordered the government to take “concrete steps to heal students suffering psychological and mental disorders because of the implementation of the national exams”.

Students have come to fear the national exams because the exam was previously used to determine whether or not they could graduate, regardless of the disparities in education quality among regions.

Then education minister Muhammad Nuh decided to retain the implementation of the national exams, saying that was the only possible way to measure the country’s education.

The national exam has been implemented since 2003, replacing the previous National Final Learning Evaluation (Ebtanas). It became a subject of controversy in 2005 when then president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s administration raised the passing grade from 4.01 to 4.25 for each subject.