Nurfika Osman – Hundreds of students, parents and activists rallied on Sunday, calling for the abolition of the national examination and threatening a boycott if the government insists on going ahead with testing.

"If the national examination is conducted this year, we will ask parents to ask their children not to participate in the examination," Muhammad Isnur, a lawyer from the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute representing parties opposed to the exam, told the Jakarta Globe.

The campaigners, who identified themselves as the Alliance of Students and Society to Dismiss National Examinations, held placards calling for an end to the exam at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle in Central Jakarta, with some 20 police officers standing by.

Muhammad claimed that regardless of whether they passed or not, students were suffering "psychological problems" because of the testing.

"The exam abuses their rights and the government should be responsible for the damage it has done so far," he said. "They should apologize to the students and parents."

The Supreme Court has ordered the Education Ministry to improve the quality of education nationwide before holding any further annual national exams, which have come under fire because of widespread cheating.

However, the ministry has stood its ground and insists the national exam will go ahead asscheduled this year.

"The national examination is not a good way to decide whether a student can advance to college or not as there are educational disparities between different schools and regions of the country," Muhammad added.

"There is a gap in the quality of Indonesian teachers and this should be fixed immediately in order to produce smarter students. The government should set up a better system and let the teachers conduct the examinations and decide whether the students pass or not."

The campaign to abolish the national exams has attracted widespread support on the Internet, with three Facebook groups dedicated to the cause. They are Erasing the National Examination: Stop Creating Fear Among Students with 161,420 members, Facebooker Volunteers Supporting the Supreme Court to Dismiss the National Examination with 74,310, and the Students' Movement to Stop the National Examination with 57,439.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono acknowledged this month that the national exam should not be the sole determining factor in whether students graduate. But Education Minister Mohammad Nuh said the president's comments did not mean the exam in March would be scrapped and stressed that students who failed could retake the test.

Students must get an average 5.5 out of a possible 10 in each test subject to move to the next level of education.