Jakarta – The government's move to standardize education in Indonesia through the national exams has been challenged by activists and legislators.

Masduki Baidlowi, a lawmaker with the House of Representatives' Commission X for education and culture, said the government needed to consider the uneven quality of schools nationwide, including the poorly skilled teachers and improper facilities in a number of regions, if it wanted to press ahead with a standardized examination system.

"Other countries applying national exams have upgraded the quality of their education evenly, making the exams an appropriate standard," he told a radio talk show here Saturday.

Several activists and educators agreed with Masduki, saying the national exams could not be used to measure the country's improving standards in education.

Arist Merdeka Sirait from the National Commission on Child Protection said the increase in the number of high school students who passed their exams this year from last year did not mean the tests were successfully filtering the merit-worthy students.

The number of high school students who graduated rose from 79.81 percent in 2005 to 91.44 percent this year, the Education Ministry announced last week. Almost two million students sat the tests this year.

"The government is easily relieved by the growing number of graduating students. But it does not consider what kind of students are passing the exams and what kind are failing," Arist said, also speaking on the radio show.

He said that by Saturday morning, 3,309 students had come to his office to complain about their unsuccessful exams and around 80 percent were students with outstanding academic records, some of whom had already been accepted by universities or offered scholarships.

"We can see from their documents that they have good marks at school," Arist said. "Those students came from Jakarta and satellite cities Depok, Bekasi and Tangerang. Besides that, we also received phone calls from regions outside Greater Jakarta."

Suparman, from the Forum of Indonesian Independent Teachers, said the country's education system was not ready for a uniform standard and teachers should be included in determining whether students should graduate.

Responding to increasing calls for the government to hold remedial tests for the failed students, Vice President Jusuf Kalla said Friday there would be no rerun of the exams as it could spoil the purpose of national testing – to encourage students to study hard and improve their international competitiveness.

On Sunday, Coordinating Minister for the People's Welfare Aburizal Bakrie said there was no reason for the government to revise the examination system since only 10 percent of students failed the tests. "The problem is not with the system, it's the fault of teachers and students," he said.

He blamed the failed students for concentrating on only one subject instead of studying all the tested areas.

Teguh Juwarno, a spokesperson for Education Minister Bambang Sudibyo, said cases of top-ranked students failing the exams were a one-in-a-million occurrence and that teachers should help them overcome their problems.

"We should seek the shortcomings of those students, not blame the national exams, which have been proven to screen passing students, whose number increased this year," he told the Saturday talk show.

"We must appreciate the students who have worked hard and passed the exams." He said failing was a part of the learning process and students should not be discouraged from discovering their limits and should learn from their mistakes to make future improvements.

"The system is aimed at improving the national education systems's quality, and we have to see it as a long term progress," he said. "The failing students and schools with low graduation rates should be supervised closely." He said the government would help improve the quality of schools in regions with the lowest percentage of graduates.

Among the provinces with the lowest proportion of students passing the exams were North Maluku (72.57 percent), East Nusa Tenggara (75.37 percent) and South Kalimantan (77.37). Other provinces reported some schools failed to deliver any passing students. They included Jakarta, with seven failing schools, Bali with three schools and Riau with four schools.