Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – Calls have been aired in Medan, North Sumatra, by the Teacher Eye Drop Community (KAMG) for the government to cancel the National Examinations for good due to its concerns that it is plagued with cheating year after year.
KAMG chairman Abdi Muskarya Saragih said the national exams had been conducted for 10 years and yet they were still not free from cheating, despite calls for the government to curb it.
Abdi said that in North Sumatra alone, cheating had been found in many regions including Medan city and the regencies of Serdang Bedagai, Labuhan Batu and North Tapanuli.
"We have complete evidence of cheating," Saragih told a press conference in Medan on Wednesday. He said the KAMG would send all the evidence to the education minister in its call that the exams be cancelled.
Saragih added that all the evidence had been documented in photos and videos. Among the evidence were leaked answer sheets and text messages containing exam key answers.
Cheating methods, according to Saragih, were generally the same across the province. Students received the exam answers from a person claiming to be a teacher one day prior to the exam.
The answers were bought collectively by students at prices ranging from Rp 10,000 to Rp 75,000 per student per subject. After the students had purchased the answer key, many exam controllers were recorded entering examination rooms late and, thus, not having time to check the students already present inside the room.
"This proves that most of the controllers in North Sumatra are not performing their duties well. They create an impression that students are free to cheat," chairman of KAMG's investigative team, Benny Sinaga, said.
A teacher from Deli Serdang, Resita Lubis, did not deny the fact that there were controllers who deliberately let students cheat while taking the exams.
"When I was a controller two years ago, I was told by the school not to be too strict with students. But I ignored that advice, which perhaps accounts for why I was never asked to be a controller again," said Lubis, who is also a member of the KAMG's supervisory board.
She said she could not guarantee that returning to the previous exam model, known as Ebtanas, would eliminate cheating. "But, if it happens, the credibility of each school will be at stake," she said.
Separately, North Sumatra's examination chairman, Hendrik Siregar, denied the alleged cheating, saying that the exams ran smoothly in the province. "There has been no cheating in North Sumatra," he said on Wednesday.
Reports of cheating have been aired across the country as senior high school students began to take the exams on Monday.
In Jambi, for example, two people who allegedly distributed answer keys to students at the state-run SMA 6 Jambi senior high school have been arrested by police.
Separately in West Lombok regency, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), it seems dozens of students would rather get married than take the exam.
The regency's Education Agency head, Fathurahim, said 15 students did not take the exam, 11 of whom had married prior to the examination. "It's a real concern that they chose to get married rather than take the exam," Fathurahim said.
Meanwhile in Maumere, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), 11 students at maritime and marine vocational schools reportedly missed the exam because they were fishing in the province's waters.
[Jon Afrizal, Panca Nugraha and Yemris Fointuna contributed to this story from Jambi, NTB and NTT, respectively.]