T

he cover of this year's national exams paper for senior high school students was replaced with an 'honesty contract', which has to be signed by students in order to finish the test. This new concept attempts to deal with the problem of the large number of students who cheat during the exams. However, I believe that this contract will not be able to reduce the number of students who cheat.

Some people may argue that this effort will discourage students from cheating. But it is well known that the answers to the national exams are commonly available for sale. The prices range from Rp 500,000 (US$43) to Rp 1 million. In fact, someone offered me the answer sheet to the elementary national exam for Rp 1 million. Of course I turned the offer down.

This honesty contract is a way for the government to teach the students to be honest, to point out the problem of cheating and to make it official that the students pledge not to cheat on the exam.  

However, don't you think it's embarrassing to have to sign a contract in an exam? This contract merely highlights the mess of Indonesia's education system.

There are countless better things they could do instead of this contract. They could implement stricter rules and regulations such as standardizing the minimum distance between students or limiting access to exam papers. They could label the packets properly and enforce the rules and regulations of the exams.

And finally, students who are tempted to cheat on their exams may need to read a quote from the social critic Mokokoma Mokhonoana: 'The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.'

Anya Wibowo
Bandung, West Java