Problems in UN

          Ujian Nasional is one of the education systems in Indonesia. UN is conducted for Elementary School, Junior High School and Senior High School students who want to graduate. The system has the goal to make the justice for all students in Indonesia to graduate from school. The justice means every student who wants to graduate have to pass the examination. Undang-undang Republik Indonesia nomor 20 tahun 2003 is the fundamental law for UN. There are pros and cons about UN, some people agree and support UN, but also there are many people disagree and decline UN. Actually UN has the good purpose for Indonesia education, but in fact, we can see there are so many problems which caused by UN. There are 3 problems of UN that we are going to talk about in this essay.

            First, we are going to talk about the first point, as we know there are so many cheatings in UN. There are so many kind of cheatings in UN. Starting from the most simple one, such as whispering and seeing friend’s answer. There are also some extreme ways in cheating, such as buying question and answer key before UN. Many students can get the answer keys easily. Even, some schools provide the key answer for the students. There are many reasons why school provides the answer. School was insisted to make the students graduate, and  make the school’s name better. Government  surely has known about this kind of thing. Government also has done some systems to discourage cheating in UN, but what the government has done does not work so well. As we know we still can find so many cheating cases in UN. The latest cheating case was in 2011. There was cheating practical in SDN Gadel 2 Surabaya. The teachers and the headmaster who conducted this cheating practical, and they threat to get fire (id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ujian_Nasional). There are some ways which government has done, such as the room sterilitation before UN, new security system while UN is running, but those systems seem do not work so well. We still can find some cheatings process in UN.

            The second, UN is unfair for students. The students have studied hard for some years, but their graduation just considered by UN in 3 up to 5 days. Of course it is unfair for students, their strike in 3 or 6 years (for elementary school) seems useless when they get bad score in UN. The worse one, we can see so many smart and clever students, but they do not graduate from school. Some students even have already accepted in some universities, but they cannot go to university because they do not graduate from school. One of the students in 2005 could not study in German, because she did not pass the UN. She has got the scholarship, but she could not get in, just because of UN in 3 up to 5 days (liputan6.com). Of course it is  wondering, maybe in that time she was not in a good condition and got nervous. So that is why she could not do the items in UN well. There are so many rules in UN, and the rules are bothersome for students. The worst one for student is they have to darken the answer sheet clearly. Some of the students in Indonesia do not graduate just because they make little mistakes in darken the answer sheet. The students feel the pressure when they have to darken the answer sheet in limited time. They also have to devide their focus to think about the answer and think about darken the answer. This is one of the evidences that UN is unfair for students. Although they have answered the answer correctly, they still cannot graduate just because of the little mistakes.

            The third point, UN is ineffective. We have talked about two big problems which caused by UN. UN is uneffective to decide whether the students should graduate or not. School also does not have right to decide it, whereas the school knows the characteristic and the ability of the students well. All of the decision making is in government’s hand, and of course it is unfair and ineffective for the students. Many students try to suicide, because they get depressed. They have a big expectation to graduate in UN, but they cannot reach it. So that’s why the suicide precentage for students increase. It feels so embarassing when the students fail to graduate from school, not just for the students, but also for family and parents. It explains why many students do everything to graduate, such as cheating, like what we have explained in the first point.

            UN has the good purpose, but in fact we can see many problems caused by UN, such as cheating, UN seems to be unfair and ineffective. What should government do is to repair the system and make the new policy in UN to make UN better in next day. What should government do is, they have to think about school’s right to take a part in decision making. UN should not be abolished, but government has to make a new policy and system to make UN better, and fair enough for all people, especially for students. Of course we want to have high quality students for Indonesia, and not all people can graduate easily from school, but of course we have to think also about their feeling and their strike in school. Government also has to consider about facilities for each school in Indonesia. If each school has good facilities, we believe it will increase graduation precentage in Indonesia. All students in Indonesia also has to do hard effort to graduate, because it is not easy to get graduation, and honesty is the most important for everyone to make better UN and better education in Indonesia.