As if it is not enough to watch the recently jumble tangle of the national exam covered by various media outlets, a friend of mine who teaches junior high school poured in her wrath on her Facebook wall. She lamented over the poor quality of the answering sheets. Her students suffered from increasing tension and stress to not damaging their sheets during the exam. The substandard sheets were easily torn when they tried to rectify their answers by erasing the false answers.
“It’s outrageously maddening! Not only the government fails to ensure the distribution of exam materials within a timely order, it also recklessly appointed printing company that provided poor quality answering sheet. It’s a total mess!” Her anger came pouring in.
Another drama followed when I watched the news in one of the national TV covering the national exam fiasco and the allegedly leaked key answers among students in Bandar Lampung. Asked during a live interview on whether he felt ashamed and guilty for cheating during the exam, the anonymous high school student candidly replied, “I don’t feel ashamed or guilty because the others do the same.”
I was totally taken aback. My jaw dropped! A bloody vulgar picture that perfectly illustrates the ends justifies the means at whatever cost including dignity and integrity!
Despite the noble cause of the national exam, we constantly see many frauds in its application; leaking documents, answer and question sheets as well as cheating by using the service of joki or someone who offers service to do the exam. All these irregularities found during the exam have been the main focus of the profoundly negative effect of the national exam over our educational system.
The so-called policy of national exam that the Ministry of Education and Culture had defended to have helped them mapping the quality of the education has apparently failed to deliver its noble goal. Cheating always mars the annual event. Instead of improving the educational quality, the policy has forced teachers and students alike to foster the culture of ‘cheating’. It is an irony how teachers who should be the one who encourage their students to learn and study are doing the opposite by spreading the leaked answers in the name of helping students to graduate.
Bad education policies damage children. The national exam costs highly every year, but does not measure the actual quality of national education. The standardized testing is currently the nation's dominant educational theme, the primary focus of schooling i.e how much preparation needed, how much anxiety produced, the costs, the scores, the delay, the cheating – and so forth.
Students' intelligence is measured by grades, which only partially touch the key purpose of the teaching-learning process. Passing the exam with satisfying result becomes the ultimate goal. To fail increasingly grows into the worst nightmare both for teachers and students. The national exam becomes a terrible monster that they try hard to eliminate on whatever cost. If all the students graduate, the success would boost the school reputation.
Thus, both parties sometimes work hand in hand to outsmart the the test illegally, ignoring the sanctions imposed on such acts. Key answers leak days before the day of the exam. Teachers are caught red-handed to help distributing the leak to their students. They unconsciously destroy the basic foundation of character building by surrendering to the increasing pressure of the test. They set bad example, a damaging role model. Integrity and dignity as part of character building lost in the process. The end weighs more than the process. They measure their success through numbers only. Quality is sacrificed in the expense of quality. The damage is irreversible.
It is obvious that things have gone pretty wrong. Teachers, parents, students, practitioners and allies from every corner of the nation have continuously voiced their concerns and outcries over the jumble tangle within our national education system; the half-baked curriculum, the national exam, the delay of the exam materials and so on.
And yet the Ministry of Education and Culture in particular, remains obsessed with the testing, ignoring the negative consequences and the pouring outcries. As a result, coursework in most schools has become dominated by test preparation and lost any semblance of intellectual rigor.
I personally do not say "no to testing." I say the government should have a better alternative - an assessment system that includes student performance, professional development, curriculum innovation, rubrics for assessment, and a documented success rate for college acceptance and perseverance to measure the quality of our education. Therefore, the government should consider another way of examination such as giving the right to the schools to conduct the examination and determine their graduation of their own students. Attention must refocus on the classroom: on texts, not testing manuals; on critical thinking skills, not testing drills; on complex writing assignments, not formulaic essay tests; on advanced math skills and scientific problem solving, not rote memorization; on probing discussion and debate, not platitudes and clichés.
Therefore, policymakers need to promote alternatives that work. They need to visit more schools; listen to those who work closest with children about their experiences; study the abundant research that has been published on good teaching practices; and ensure that policies permit flexibility to meet the diverse needs of children and school communities.
“It’s outrageously maddening! Not only the government fails to ensure the distribution of exam materials within a timely order, it also recklessly appointed printing company that provided poor quality answering sheet. It’s a total mess!” Her anger came pouring in.
Another drama followed when I watched the news in one of the national TV covering the national exam fiasco and the allegedly leaked key answers among students in Bandar Lampung. Asked during a live interview on whether he felt ashamed and guilty for cheating during the exam, the anonymous high school student candidly replied, “I don’t feel ashamed or guilty because the others do the same.”
I was totally taken aback. My jaw dropped! A bloody vulgar picture that perfectly illustrates the ends justifies the means at whatever cost including dignity and integrity!
Despite the noble cause of the national exam, we constantly see many frauds in its application; leaking documents, answer and question sheets as well as cheating by using the service of joki or someone who offers service to do the exam. All these irregularities found during the exam have been the main focus of the profoundly negative effect of the national exam over our educational system.
The so-called policy of national exam that the Ministry of Education and Culture had defended to have helped them mapping the quality of the education has apparently failed to deliver its noble goal. Cheating always mars the annual event. Instead of improving the educational quality, the policy has forced teachers and students alike to foster the culture of ‘cheating’. It is an irony how teachers who should be the one who encourage their students to learn and study are doing the opposite by spreading the leaked answers in the name of helping students to graduate.
Bad education policies damage children. The national exam costs highly every year, but does not measure the actual quality of national education. The standardized testing is currently the nation's dominant educational theme, the primary focus of schooling i.e how much preparation needed, how much anxiety produced, the costs, the scores, the delay, the cheating – and so forth.
Students' intelligence is measured by grades, which only partially touch the key purpose of the teaching-learning process. Passing the exam with satisfying result becomes the ultimate goal. To fail increasingly grows into the worst nightmare both for teachers and students. The national exam becomes a terrible monster that they try hard to eliminate on whatever cost. If all the students graduate, the success would boost the school reputation.
Thus, both parties sometimes work hand in hand to outsmart the the test illegally, ignoring the sanctions imposed on such acts. Key answers leak days before the day of the exam. Teachers are caught red-handed to help distributing the leak to their students. They unconsciously destroy the basic foundation of character building by surrendering to the increasing pressure of the test. They set bad example, a damaging role model. Integrity and dignity as part of character building lost in the process. The end weighs more than the process. They measure their success through numbers only. Quality is sacrificed in the expense of quality. The damage is irreversible.
It is obvious that things have gone pretty wrong. Teachers, parents, students, practitioners and allies from every corner of the nation have continuously voiced their concerns and outcries over the jumble tangle within our national education system; the half-baked curriculum, the national exam, the delay of the exam materials and so on.
And yet the Ministry of Education and Culture in particular, remains obsessed with the testing, ignoring the negative consequences and the pouring outcries. As a result, coursework in most schools has become dominated by test preparation and lost any semblance of intellectual rigor.
I personally do not say "no to testing." I say the government should have a better alternative - an assessment system that includes student performance, professional development, curriculum innovation, rubrics for assessment, and a documented success rate for college acceptance and perseverance to measure the quality of our education. Therefore, the government should consider another way of examination such as giving the right to the schools to conduct the examination and determine their graduation of their own students. Attention must refocus on the classroom: on texts, not testing manuals; on critical thinking skills, not testing drills; on complex writing assignments, not formulaic essay tests; on advanced math skills and scientific problem solving, not rote memorization; on probing discussion and debate, not platitudes and clichés.
Therefore, policymakers need to promote alternatives that work. They need to visit more schools; listen to those who work closest with children about their experiences; study the abundant research that has been published on good teaching practices; and ensure that policies permit flexibility to meet the diverse needs of children and school communities.
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