National examination (henceforth: UN) always becomes hot topic for Indonesian students in the last grade

because it is one of the requisites for the students whether they can continue their study or not. It is the
basic evaluation which determines the students whether they pass or fail. This evaluation system is used to
measure the competence of the students in the end of their study. UN is conducted every year for the third
grade of junior and senior high school, also for the sixth grade of elementary school to improve the
education quality in Indonesia. On the other hand, the implementation of UN has not been fair enough
considering there still many aspects of education such as infrastructure and the quality of the education
itself that should be fixed by the government. UN is not effective to improve the quality of education in
Indonesia if only by conducting UN which becomes the standard evaluation to establish students’ ability. It
seems clear that UN should not be conducted in Indonesia because of three reasons: the fairness, the
deviation, and the low preparation.

People might argue that UN can be the standard evaluation of the quality of education development in
Indonesia. This statement is completely unacceptable because the fact is that only six subjects that are
included to be tested in UN. We can say that it cannot be the standard of education development because
it is totally not valid. The students of elementary school have passed six years, while junior and senior high
school students have passed three years of their study to meet the UN. Unfortunately, the result of their
years in school does not considered as their accomplishment because the final result that decide whether
they pass or not is only based on UN, there is no more consideration which can helps the students.
Furthermore, there are many schools which have high quality precisely get the opposite result from their
expectation, it possibly happens because of some factors such as the condition of the students or their
school at the day of UN implementation such as sickness. The multiple choice form of the question is also
can be the factor why the result is not valid. The students can easily choose the question whether they
know or not, when they are lucky the answer will probably true and vice versa, so that the result is just
based on the luck.

Besides, people may say that UN can be the motivator for the students and the teachers to improve their
learning and teaching quality. This argument is totally wrong. Based on some cases that we can see from
the media, there are many students are frustration and give up even before they face the UN questions.
Some of them even decide to end their lives because they afraid cannot pass the final exam, while the
teachers seem like too much when the UN gets closer. The teachers usually give more portion of time to
prepare the students by giving tasks every day. That activity actually does not make the students
motivated, but they get bored and tired. That is why, most of students in the last grade are lazy to attend
the extra time of study and they even decide to escape from the class because the materials that are given
by the teachers always the same.

In addition, people may also think that UN can be the instrument for implanting self-confidence. This
statement is completely wrong. As has been stated before that UN cannot be the standard of the education
quality in Indonesia, it happens because there are some problems of the implementation. The first problem
is that there are many students do the examination dishonestly. Many ways that can be done by the
students to get the answer such as, bring mobile phone to communicate with other people outside the class
who send them the answer, discuss with their friends while the supervisors do not notice. Moreover, the
worst way of finding the answer is that buying the answer key or buying the question sheet illegally then
pays someone to answer the question. In fact, the national examination question is made easier than the
question from their own school. Those cases show that the students feel afraid and depressed, so that they
have no more self-confidence.
The reasons why UN should not be conducted is that because it is unfair to find the result or to judge the
ability of students. As explained before that a student can pass the examination is only determined by six
subjects. It is totally unfair for the students who have studied many subjects for three years and it will be
exchanged by six days for UN. It just like they attend the non-UN subjects class for nothing, because at the
end of their study, those non-UN subjects will not be considered. It is unfair for the students because they
have learned more than ten lessons during their study for three years while UN judges students ability by
tested only six subjects. Furthermore, there are still a lot of students have not got the same quality of the
education yet. For example, the students from the remote areas in Papua, they have sub-standard school
building, limited qualified teachers and not really good facilities which support their learning activity, such as
tables and chairs and boards. Those facilities actually should be straightened up by the government before
they are demanded to pass the UN.

Besides, the government should not continue the implementation of UN because UN involves many
deviations. Based on Law of National Education System, every school has their rights to develop their own
curriculum or learning method, but the fact is that the school does not have right to determine which
students are qualified to pass the exam, whereas schools know and understand their students’ abilities
even not only in academic but also social life. In the contrary the government does not know anything about
the students but the government is the one which gives the judgment to the students. School should be
given a chance to choose and consider the quality of the students. Furthermore, the purpose of the
education is to gain three aspect of education: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor, but the fact is that UN
only test the cognitive aspect.

Moreover, UN should not be continued also because of the low preparation of the government itself. Based
on suarajabar.com, there are around six hundred photocopied answer sheets found in Tasikmalaya,
Indramayu, Bogor, Bandung, Sukabumi, and Depok. These evidences indicate that the original answer
sheets are limited. Thus, the cooperation and the distribution system of the central government and the
local government cannot be conducted well. What is the objective expected by the government from the
output of our education if the government itself has low preparation for the implementation of UN?

In brief, we have known the weakness of conducting UN in Indonesia. The fairness, the deviation, and the
low preparation that almost happen in every year show that the validation of the result of National
Examination is doubted. If the government wants to keep the regulation of conducting UN, they should
change the system of the examination itself and fulfill the need of our students rights before demand them
to develop the quality of education. The National Examination can be conducted but not as the only result
that decide the graduation of the students, there should be another considerations.