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Govt’s plan to revamp national exams next year met with doubt
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Heavy focus: Students take the national exam on Monday at a school for the disabled (SLB) in Denpasar, Bali. The exam was held at junior high schools throughout the country from Monday to Thursday. (The Jakarta Post/Zul Trio Hanggono)
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lementary and Secondary Education Minister Abdul Mu’ti is looking to scrap the national assessment and replace it with a revamped version of the national examinations, although observers are unconvinced that reintroducing the decades-old policy will result in an improvement to the nation’s education system.
Mu’ti’s predecessor, tech entrepreneur-turned novice education minister Nadiem Makarim, introduced the new assessment system in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic to replace the national exams.
While the latter sought to evaluate each student through nationwide-standardized tests in math, English, Indonesian and other subjects, the national assessment was instead geared toward measuring schools’ performances in educating their students.
The assessment only required a sample of students from each school to take tests in literacy and numerical competence, and its results did not have any impact on whether the students graduated.
Schools minister Mu’ti, who has been reviewing a number of Nadiem’s flagship policies since assuming office in October, said that he had received various complaints surrounding the national assessment.
“A lot of parties see [the national assessment] as inadequate. Universities, for example, require individual test results [to determine whether a student is admitted]. But the assessment only [gave tests] to a sample of students,” the minister said during a press conference on Tuesday.
Read also: Indonesia scraps national exams due to COVID-19
