Only a day after he introduced his new education policy, which received a mixed reaction from the public, Education and Culture Minister Nadiem Makarim was grilled on Thursday by legislators at the House of Representatives.

Many of them questioned the minister about his new policy, one element of which was his plan to scrap the national exam (UN) starting in 2021 and replace it with a competency assessment. They also questioned the possibility of the minister introducing a new curriculum, which has been applied in a private school in Jakarta, nationwide.

“What do you mean by competency assessment? A character survey? It will all surely be carried out by teachers. Are our teachers prepared for it?” asked Syaiful Huda, chairman of House Commission X overseeing education, during the hearing on Thursday.

Separately, House Speaker Puan Maharani also called on the education minister to explain his new policy to the public thoroughly to avoid confusion.

The hearing was held particularly to hear firsthand from Nadiem regarding his introduction on Wednesday of his education policy called Merdeka Belajar (Freedom to Learn).

The new policy consists of four points with the most controversial being his plan to scrap the UN starting in 2021 and replace it with a “competency assessment”.

“The UN in 2021 will be changed into a competency assessment and character survey, which consists of the ability to reason using language and numeracy while strengthening character education,” the minister said.

The tests will be given to students who are in the middle grades (fourth grade for elementary, eighth grade for junior high school and 11th grade for senior high school), letting teachers and schools use the test results to evaluate their teaching methods.

Unlike the existing UN result, which is widely used as a ticket to enter highly competitive schools, Nadiem said the assessment result would not be used as an entrance requirement.

Nadiem’s new policy includes revising the regulations on the school-run exam with national standards (USBN), learning-materials planning (RPP) and the controversial zoning system for school enrollment (PPDB).

Based on existing practice, USBN exam questions are prepared by the ministry, the teacher’s working group and subject teacher’s council.

Nadiem’s third program, focusing on simplifying the RPP, is said to give teachers more freedom in selecting, creating, utilizing and developing their own guidelines.

Regarding the PPDB system, Nadiem said it would still be used despite providing a smaller quota for students that live within a school’s zone. With the new PPDB system, a minimum 50 percent quota is reserved for students who live inside a school’s zone while 15 percent is reserved for affirmative-action students, 5 percent for transferred students and 30 percent for high-achieving students.

The Indonesian Teachers Union Federation (FSGI) praised the new education policy but an education expert criticized his decision to slash the quota for students living near schools in school enrollment.

“The quota for the zoning system is too low, especially with the increased quota for high-achieving students to 30 percent. We fear it could be abused by the regional education agencies. They could just submit the highest score from the computerized UN result and not from other achievements such as in music, art and sports,” said the FSGI deputy secretary-general Satriawan Salim.

The federation’s secretary-general Heru Purnomo lauded the minister’s initiative to cut the RPP down to a one-page document.

“Since its inception, the RPP, which consists of dozens of pages, has been a burden for teachers. If combined with the basic competency report in a subject, a teacher could write hundreds of pages of RPP in a semester,” he said.

Education expert Itje Chodijah warned the minister against changing the 2013 curriculum. “It’s absolutely correct. It gives back freedom to teachers as educators not just teaching administrators,” she said. (mpr)

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