Jakarta – Students at religious and private schools fared worse in the national examinations than their state-school counterparts, while the low quality of teachers nationwide is cause for concern, an official says.

Ministry of National Education research and development agency head Mansyur Ramly said the latest national exam results had given the ministry a useful map of how schools across the country had performed.

In general, the failure rates tended to be higher in religious schools than state schools. "It is also higher in private schools compared to state schools," Mansyur said.

Mansyur said that the highest failure rates were found in conflict areas and underdeveloped provinces, with rates the worst in tsunami-stricken Aceh, which has also had also been wracked by decades of separatist war. Mansyur said poor teacher quality was also an important reason why students were failing.

Ministry director-general of human resources development Fasli Djalal said that only between 10 and 20 percent of teachers had scored above average in recent competency tests held by the ministry. "All regions have already started evaluating their teachers' competence," he said, adding that the evaluation process had so far covered only 10 percent of teachers nationwide.

Fasli said the new national regulations on teachers' qualifications would gradually increase standards. "The minimum requirements for new teachers will be the D4 (university diploma-level) or S1 (university degree-level) graduates with an additional 38 to 40 credits in a professional subject."

He said the country currently had few primary and secondary teachers that met the criteria. It would take 15 years to gradually improve existing teachers' competence through training, he said, meaning students would have to make do in the meantime.

Increased pass-rate requirements set by the ministry have meant failure rates in the national junior and senior high school examinations have doubled this year, denying more students the chance to continue their studies.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla said on Friday the examination pass rates showed up the failings of the education sector. However, a nation could only move forward if it was honest about its educational quality, he said.

It would take a concerted effort to improve the system, Kalla said. "We do not want to mistreat students, but we encourage them, as well as parents, teachers and local administrations to work harder." Some education experts have opposed the idea of measuring students' competency through centralized national examinations.

"Higher standards can be set after all the conditions are met," education activist Yanti Muchtar said. "Those (conditions) are competent teachers, sufficient infrastructure and contextuality to local conditions." It would have been better for the schools to decide whether their students should pass, Yanti said.

"Logically, they are the ones who know best about their students' ability and progress."