Dessy Sagita – Indonesia Corruption Watch has questioned the results of Indonesia's latest national exams, calling the nearly perfect pass rate suspicious.

An ICW education researcher, Febri Hendri, said such good results were unlikely given the state of the education in the country.

"That 99.5 percent rate is strange and we must question the credibility. To me it is illogical," Febri said in Jakarta on Thursday.

"This has confirmed our doubts that there have been rampant cheatings and leakage of exam papers. If the exams were performed honestly and in accordance with standards, the figure wouldn't have been that fantastic."

Febri warned universities against using scores from the exams, known as UN tests, to measure students' eligibility.

"Universities must be careful, and reject any attempt to make UN scores a determining factor in students' selections. To us, UN is merely a tool that the government uses to legitimate their waste of funds [in organizing the UNs]. They've made it so that the outcome is fantastic."

The Education and Culture Ministry announced earlier on Thursday that 99.5 percent of the country's 1.5 million final-year senior high school students passed the exams, which took place last month.

The exams are meant to determine the final-year students' eligibility to graduate and continue to higher education. (BeritaSatu/JG)