Indonesia: New admissions system in trouble

GD&TĐ - With the aim of improving fairness and transparency in admissions, the SPMB system, an improved version of the old PPDB admission mechanism in Indonesia, has faced strong criticism.

Observers, monitoring organizations and parents have expressed concern as technical glitches, cheating and management shortcomings continue to recur as in previous years, despite commitments from the Indonesian Ministry of Education .

The new primary school admission system (also known as SPMB) was announced by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education in January 2024 to overcome the limitations of the old system (called PPDB). According to the old regulations, 50% of the quota was allocated according to the residential area near the school, leading to many parents "circumventing the law" and falsifying residential information to win places at high-quality schools.

The new system will address this by reducing the quota for local students and increasing it for special groups such as those from disadvantaged backgrounds, those with disabilities or those with excellent academic records. However, this structural change has not yet stopped cheating.

Soon after enrollment began, the country was hit with a series of scandals. In Banten, Vice President Budi Prajogo of the provincial council was caught signing off on a student he did not know. Although he denied any wrongdoing, he was fired.

In Parepare (South Sulawesi), a special investigation team was formed to investigate allegations of “buying a place in school”. Meanwhile, a student’s application for a policy education program was canceled because his parents falsified income documents.

The incidents have raised concerns about weak oversight. Indonesia’s Ombudsman said complaints of falsified documents, bribery and political interference remain widespread. Of the country’s more than 500 municipalities, only about 100 have properly mapped out enrollment quotas for their programs.

The Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) also criticized the lack of preparedness of education authorities, especially in communicating information to parents and developing online registration systems. According to KPAI, technical glitches and fraud not only undermine trust, but also “violate children’s right to a fair education.”

Amid mounting criticism, Education Ministry spokesman Gogot Suharwoto maintained that the problems were “isolated”. He said that the SPMB implementation process was generally “smooth” and any difficulties were “handled quickly”. At the same time, he called on local authorities to take strong action against violations, affirming that the ministry had a clear process to handle and revoke admission rights if necessary.

However, experts say that current solutions are only temporary and do not address the root cause. They suggest that there should be an independent monitoring mechanism, transparency in enrollment data, improvement of technology systems and enhancement of local management capacity if SPMB is not to be “old wine in new bottles”.

“The transformation of the system is necessary, but it cannot be used as an excuse for lax management or predictable technical errors,” said Aris Adi Leksono, Indonesia’s Child Protection Commissioner.

According to Asia News Network

Source: https://giaoducthoidai.vn/indonesia-he-thong-tuyen-sinh-moi-gap-rac-roi-post738328.html