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astern Indonesia and disadvantaged provinces still lag behind the national standard despite the national examination system designed to improve the quality of education.

National examination results in 2008-2009 showed a high failure rate among high school students nationwide, with underdeveloped areas, such as East Nusa Tenggara, Central Sulawesi, North Maluku, West Papua and Central Kalimantan, ranking at the bottom of the list.

This prompted the Ministry of National Education to introduce a remedial review of core subjects in 2009 in schools throughout the country in preparation for the national examination.

Even with the remedial review program in place, East Nusa Tenggara remained among the lowest ranking provinces, where it had been in 2008 and 2009.

In 2008, East Nusa Tenggara recorded 44.78 percent failure rate among its 17,401 high school students majoring in social science. In 2009 the province recorded 37.85 percent failure rate from 18,566 students.

The overall national failure rate in 2009 was 8.22 percent. In 2010, when a remedial exam was introduced, East Nusa Tenggara reduced its failure rate to 7.73 from 20,631 students, but nationally it still lagged behind because the national failure rate was 1.21 percent.

West Papua, which ranked 30th among the nation’s 33 provinces in 2009, improved its position to 18th with only 1.57 percent of students failing their exam and only 65 of 4,135 social science students failing in 2010.

Indonesian Teachers Association (PGRI) research and development division chairman Mohammad Abduhzen said West Papua’s rapid improvement was surprising and needed to be investigated.

He expressed his disbelief that West Papua ranked higher than Yogyakarta last year, which was categorized as part of the more developed region of Western Indonesia.

Yogyakarta recorded a failure rate of 7.86 in 2010, placing it 33rd among 33 provinces. In 2008, Yogyakarta ranked 11th and ranked 15th in 2009.

Abduhzen said he could not understand how Yogyakarta, with its modern facilities and good track record, could slide down below West Papua, which lacked educational infrastructure.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but no matter how much education in Papua has improved, it is hard to believe they are able to compete with Yogyakarta,” he said.

He added that he thought the national examination should be abolished.

“The national examination does nothing to improve a student’s performance. This can only be done by improving the teaching and learning process,” he said.

National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas Anak) chairman Arist Merdeka Sirait said the education gap in Indonesia would remain because regular schools in remote areas had limited access to educational facilities.

National Education Standard Body (BNSP) member Mungin Eddy Wibowo said the national exam was meant to map student competency.

“From the national exam, we can see a map of the strong and weak provinces. Then the government can analyze the factors and provide aid to such provinces,” he said.

With such a system the ministry should have given more money to Yogyakarta and less to West Papua. (rcf)