National exam will go ahead in 2010 despite court ruling, minister says

Jakarta, NU Online
Indonesian Education Minister Mohammad Nuh said recently that his ministry will still conduct national exams next year, emphasizing that a Supreme Court verdict announced this week does not state anything about canceling the test.

Speaking in a press conference recently, Nuh said that the court verdict called on the government to improve the quality of teachers and education access and information throughout the country, "and for the past three years we have been doing it."<>

"Yes [the national examination will still be held], there is nothing in the verdict that says the government should cancel or abort the national examination," he said.

The Supreme Court has upheld a High Court ruling requiring the government to upgrade teaching and school facilities nationwide before conducting another national exam.

The Supreme Court ruling, which was made on Sept. 14 but only announced on Tuesday, was the latest step in a legal process that began in 2007, when a group of students and parents filed a lawsuit against the government at the Central Jakarta District Court, seeking to eliminate the national exam.

The verdict held that the president, vice president and the education minister had been lax in their duties to fulfill the human rights of Indonesians who believed they had been victimized as a result of the education system.

"We have done that," Nuh said. "We have improved the quality of teachers through certification and we introduced a program to require all teachers be degree-qualified."

From 2005, the ministry has been pushing to certify teachers across state and private schools and Nuh said that they aim to finish the process for 2.9 million teachers in 2015. The ministry's data states that, to date, only 600,000 teachers are certified. Some 1.2 million teachers nationwide did not have college degrees when the program began, prompting the government to increase scholarships and access to universities.

Nuh also said that the ministry had now rolled out internet access to almost 19,000 schools in the country.

He said that it would be almost impossible to wait for all schools be standardized before the ministry could hold another national exam. Nuh said that the improvements would never be completed, because the ministry was continually upgrading its standards.

"Our effort [to improve teacher quality] has not yet finished, and it never will finish," he said. "The same thing also goes for our school infrastructure development, because ‘good’ is very relative."

However, Muhamad Isnur, a lawyer at the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH) who represented the complainants, stated that the improvement they asked for was based on standards set by the government itself in national education regulations.

"They have set the standard, so we were referring to that," he said.

"The complainants may interpret it that that way, but the verdict does not mention anything on the eight national standards,” Nuh argued in response.

However, Nuh said that the ministry respected the Supreme Court verdict and after receiving the official copy will discuss a further action.

“There is still chance for us to file a judicial review," Nuh said.

The 2010 national exam is planned for March. The ministry will introduce a new rule for the exam, allowing students who fail the first test to undertake a second test. (dar)