Dozens of high school and university students staged a joint protest to reject National Education Minister Muhammad Nuh’s visit to Medan on Saturday.
The protest however did not affect the minister’s scheduled visit to attend a meeting of postgraduate heads from across the country at Medan State University hall.
In their speech, the protesters accused the minister’s policy of persisting with the national examination as baseless.
The protest’s coordinator, Januar Pasaribu, said the ministry has been violating the Supreme Court’s decision, which urged it to first improve teacher quality, education facilities and infrastructure and students’ access to information before making the exam as a passing standard.
He said the ministry was also aware of various leaks during the national exam but never thoroughly investigated the cases.
“Every year we hear about students committing suicide out of shame for failing to pass the national exam. Such cases should be taken into account by the ministry to find other alternative to replace the national exam,” he said in the speech.
Responding to the protest, National Education Minister Muhammad Nuh said the government would continue holding the national examination since it is important not only as a passing standard but also as an effort to find out education quality standard in each regency and city across the country.
“The national exam is also used to map standards of teaching in each school,” he said.
The mapping, he said, is important for the government to be able to support struggling schools.
The ministry earlier announced this year’s graduation rate was 89.88 percent, down from last year’s 95.05 percent, with up to 154,000 students across the country have to sit remedial exams.
The protesters accused the minister’s policy of persisting with the national examination as baseless.
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