Essay about National Examination

What Negative Impact of the National Examination?

The National Examination is a program evaluation conducted by the government through the minister educational to know the quality of education in Indonesia. In the National Exam, the government sets the standard value that used as the limit of graduation for students who are called with the “standard setting”. Through standards setting students can find out whether they graduated or not from national exam results that they get. If the value they receive exceeds the standard setting then they will be passed, but if they get less value than the standard setting then they will not pass. As we know, the National Examination in Indonesia experiencing a lot of controversy. On the one hand, some people argue that the National Exam is very useful to improve the quality of education in Indonesia. But on the other hand many people argue that the National Examination is not fair to students, teachers, and schools because National Examination seemed to be a determinant of their future. Therefore the government must consider the impact of the implementation of national exams so that we can know whether the national exam well to be done.

Every year when the National Examination directly, fraud often occurs in every school in the various regions in Indonesia. Examples of fraud include cheating, teacher justify student answer to each field of study, even the issue of selling exam questions had reported in the mass media. Cause it happened also because of the high standards setting by the government. The government should realize that every student has different capabilities. May be some students able to reach the standard setting  but for some other students this standard setting is very difficult to reach because it  includes subjects of learning that they  find difficult. The fact that we have to know that the characteristics of each subject of learning are not the same as the ability of learners. The government should not set the same standard settings for each subject of learning. They can determine the appropriate standard setting with standard competency of each student. In addition the National Examination is also often marked by rallies and suicide. Students who can not control their emotions when getting poor results on national exams will choose the way to end his life because they think his future  has been ruined. Demonstrations also often occurs in the office of the minister of education, because they think the government does not deserve to determine students' graduation, but that right to determine is the respective schools.

Fraud that often the case when the implementation of the National Examination is caused by two reasons. First, the excessive emphasis on results and not on the learning process. Finally, the results become a major destination. To achieve these goals all the way done all  the way done to pass from National Examination. On the one hand the National Examination is seen as a determinant of future students without regard to the learning process they have experienced. National Examination that displayed in the form of multiple choice also makes the students could not give his argument towards the given problem. These are to be observed by government. The question that given should can make students think more critically by applying what they have learned in school, not just pick the answer alternatives. Second, the National Examination results that impact on the reputation and good name of the school, especially the principals and teachers. When a school capable to graduating students from the National Examination then the public will assume that this  school has good quality. The amount of graduation rates will certainly affect the number of students who enroll in the new academic year at the school. This can happen because government set a national ranking of schools through the amount of value and the number of students enrolling in the school. This is the assumption that affect most people. Public seemed to not care whether the results obtained from a good learning process or the answer given by the teacher or institution tutoring outside of school. Adverse  impact of standardized tests and centralized test also produces educational that oriented tests. This will certainly lead to some result, that is excessive emphasis on test preparation; lack of moral education, social, and emotional; model of learning that used is a system of memorize and lack of student involvement in developing his creativity in various activities.

          National standardized exams are also considered unfair, ignoring the diversity of students and detrimental to students who are at the economic lower class because they have limitations in getting the sources of lessons. This is indeed a fact, because basically students have a diversity of intellectual ability, absorptive, academic, economic background, family situation, etc. Students that living in the city would be more easily gain knowledge from various sources by using more advanced technology. But for students living in the suburbs and even schools in the countryside, they would be difficult to obtain information to add to their knowledge. With the diversity of aspects that are owned by each student, government can not establish the same standard setting for all students. It is really unfair. It is also changing the way teachers teach in the class where the class is not used as a place to teach skills and improve students' intelligence, but now become a place of training exam problems. The adverse impacts of the National Examination in Indonesia, first, the students suffer from serious psychological problems. Many students who experience fear when national exams take place and many students are frustrated because they do not pass the exam. This certainly will affect the psychological state of students when carrying out a test which would have an impact on exam results. We recommend that the government should pay attention to this because the psychological state of all students are not the same but varies. Second, teachers lose their creativity in teaching. Until now, the National Examination still is used as determinants of students' graduation because most of the opinion that the National Examination can make a diligent student in learning, teachers diligently teach, and parents pay attention to children's learning process. In this case the government should realize that this happens only to obtain a high score and pass the exam.

Seeing the serious impacts of the implementation of the National Examination as described above, the government should consider this well. The National Exam is not an important factor that encourages students to excel. Maybe the National Examination can be conducted only to determine the quality of education in Indonesia alone but not as a determinant of students' graduation, because it is not fair to the students that their success of the learning process that they experienced during these few years is only determined by the National Exam. Basically that understands the character and competence of students is not a government but school. System of Exam that relies on multiple-choice with the symbol "A", "B", "C", "D", "E", is also not effective because it can cause students to be passive and uncritical in the face of a problem. They can only guess the answers are provided so that sometimes occurs cheating. The Government should realize that with the diversity that is owned by the student and the subject of lesson, the government could not use the same system and method. Therefore the government should be more self-introspection and see the negative impacts that have been proven and not just maintain arguments about benefits only.

Sources       : 

Blog, M. F. (2011, 12 13). Wordpress. Retrieved 12 28, 2011, from http://adipamuji.wordpress.com/: http://adipamuji.wordpress.com/wikipedia. (n.d.).

Wikipedia. (2012, 01 14). Wikipedia. Retrieved 12 2011, 19, from Ujian Nasional: http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ujian_Nasional