Ronna Nirmala – If you were a schoolteacher who learned that the official answer key of a test, prepared by the Ministry of Education and used by examiners to grade students, contained the wrong answers, what would you do?

This was the question facing Maria Yuniar, an English teacher for the SMK Saint John vocational school in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta.

Last month, when her students were sitting a pre-examination school test, she got a good read of the answer key. Maria found a total of 16 mistakes on the English answer key, which had been prepared by the Ministry of Education's Jakarta office.

She decided to draw up her own answer key, Maria told the Jakarta Globe, believing this was her obligation as the teacher.

Following the test, she learned that if the students' papers were graded according to the answer key provided by the ministry, 15 of her students would have failed, as they would not have attained the minimum grade.

"If I were to grade them using the answer key I drew up, just four students would have made the minimum grade," Maria said on Monday.

The pre-exam is a school test that is part of the national exams and is held to prepare students for the finals.

"It took me by surprise when I learned that my answers were different to those issued by the [education] office. I double checked them again and again."

Maria did not go into the specifics of the mistakes, but one local media report cited the following question – "I expect you could do with a cup of tea, couldn't you? Do you take milk and sugar?"

To this, the choices were:

A. Only if you're having one.
B. Please do. You've hardly eaten anything.
C. No, thank you. I've had too much already.
D. No, really thank you.

Maria's choice was A. The ministry's choice was C. Her unease caused her to report the matter to the school's headmaster. "However, I received an unsatisfactory response from the principal," Maria said. She added that the only option left to her was to speak to the media.

"I am actually a little scared about this, but I believe I am not wrong. I am worried that this mistake will carry over to the final exams, which are scheduled to begin next week. If we can prevent this mistake from happening again, we will be helping more students out," Maria told the Globe.

Taufik Yudi Mulyanto, chief of the Jakarta Education Office, said the exam answer key was not entirely the responsibility of his office.

"The exam is drafted by many parties, including teams of school officials and academic experts. What we do is just legalize it. If this exam is limited to just this school, we shall give the school the authority to get its teachers to correct the exam with their own answer key." Taufik said.

[Additional reporting by Dofa Fasila.]