Is Indonesia humiliating itself already? - CHAPTER I: National Exam

Wondering why this post has this irrelevant title? Well, before I tell you the reason why, here's a quick recap of what happened to my life...

So you remember the Trophee Xsara car I've showcased in the last blogpost right? Well, it's hard to find a feedback of your WIP skin ASAP, especially if you're new to this kind of business. However, after days of waiting, there's just one feedback given to me in order to make this skin good: making the red stripes on the hood span to the mirrors, at least that's what one of the respected Carpark members GKRacer told me.

I knew that I had to work the skin once again immediately after this is posted. But oh wow, I had "small" problems with my laptop as ~on the Sunday morning, exactly on 18th this month~ it cannot access the E:/ drive, one of the three partitions and the MOST IMPORTANT! partition EVER! due to it consisting of my downloaded files, series, games, etc, not to mention the college stuffs there. That was on my Windows 8, while after using Windows 7 and with the automatically-triggered chkdsk function, there are no bad sectors and no bad things on HDD, nothing. Hours later, I escaped another bad luck. Not for long though as the second this happened, it compromised my HDD.

Days later, I tried to figure out what GKRacer referred to. I thought he referred to the side mirrors but now I know that he was referring to the windshield, and that was what on my mind. A simple fix, and here what I came up with after some time...

Well, that's it. That IS the progress it has made, which concludes the four-wheeled paragraphs in this post. Let's face it, you have seen me blogging about how I created my Turbo Sliders creations, how I make the 40-polygon racers for GeneRally, and how I am making it in the Maximum Tune world, which is THE point of why the blog is titled as "Is Indonesia humiliating itself already?"

"But you're Indonesian, what kind of things it's done that it humiliates itself?" you wondered. There are three things that I would like to flesh out for the next posts: The issue of how "distorted" this year's National Exam is, the issue of how the Ministry of IT blocked an "innocent" video-sharing site due to a "small" issue and a series of how the mental of most Indonesians made up all the cray cray-ness, all with one purpose: to see how much us Indonesians have evolved for the past 106 years of Indonesia's awakening. If you now realized how I bring up these issues, I would like to welcome you to the three-part non-racing blogpost! :)

Beginning with the first chapter...

HOW DISTORTED THIS YEAR'S NATIONAL EXAM IS?

SUPER FALCON PUNCH once told me that "this habit should be [stopped]. Why [you don't] give that old uniform to the people who [can't go to] school because of their financial probs?" These things only happen if you passed the National Exam that is... -_- (Source: Viva.co.id)

Recently, the 2014 National Exam has brought up tensions not only because it, as always, gave stress to the guys and girls who are about to graduate Junior High and High School with style, but also the questions featured in the test are... other-worldly. And we ARE talking about how this year's questions are outside what's taught in their three-year education, both Junior High and High school. Even in when Mathematics subject came to play, one student even suicided SHORTLY after she did it. But why you die sooner even before you know the results? -_-,

The nightmare doesn't stop there; one of the questions featured in the Junior High one COPIED one of PISA's questions. And this comes from a no-surprise, self-explanatory subject, I mean, like...

Get it now? The only problem now is is it a derivation or a plagiarism... (Source)

Despite all these psychological rollercoaster rails 9th and 12th grade students must go through every year, it doesn't change the fact that Indonesia's education isn't the best, it even is regarded as one of the worst. It doesn't change its worst status even with the higher standards set this year. Even the Ministry of Education pulled the "Late-hour blindside" where it tells EVERYONE with his tweet (can't find one but I remember he posted it, sorry) that the questions will be outside of what's taught prior their 3-year education (WHY CAN'T I HAVE A SHORTER, APPROPRIATE WORD FOR THAT?). Look, the Minister can even blindside everyone, but why can't he be a Survivor contestant?

The result of the blindside is a series of shocker (NEVER. PUT. "combatmen" behind the word "shocker", please...): the late Leony Alvionita died after doing the Mathematics test, which the Minister "hack" the test with other-worldly questions that plagiarized PISA's. What the late Leony did was studying, studying, and studying as normal students did, but it was the Blindside Minister's fault. After her death is posted by her friends via BBM and then online, the Twitter world is flooded with #RIPLeonyAlvionita and #TolakUN (read: Indonesian for "Boycott the National Exam"). Responding to the news, the Blindside Minister "cried". #TolakUN's actual purpose isn't boycotting the national exam, but if you want to see its real purpose, read on.

With his fault of Blindsiding everyone, his tears should've been consisted of diamonds. What the Minister should have done is to not doing anything to the questions, and the overtly-despised plan of his doesn't improve the quality; it even made it worse. (Source: watermarked)

If you think that this is bad enough, let's throwback to 2004-2007 where there were 16 students killed themselves. In 2008, 2010, and 2013, the average suicide number for these years are 2, while the data for unmentioned years are non-existent. In total, if this year's number also makes the count, there are already 23 students who suicided, which equals to one small class. Has there been suicides in exams overseas? I don't think so, only Indonesia that has this... (sources: Kompas.com, Okezone news, Tribunnews.com, Vivanews, Tempo.co).

A Pretty little lie; "The Minister of Education and Culture responded to the students who complain that topics used in the National Exam are irrelevant to those that are taught. He stated that the difficulty of those topics can be a challenge to the students. We don't want them to be spoiled." Cool story... (source: visible)

It is true that it does haunt students and give them stress at the same time every year, but this time it is a different environment, and now that the questions and topics were International standard, not the normal standard where topics featured for each subject are purely those that are taught. And another thing to remember: There were lots of "fixes" to tests from other subjects, particularly Indonesian Language one. From what I read. I remember that the Minister vowed to recall the papers with a question that "contains" political reference.

Other than that, how does it feel entering the battlefield that's steps higher than you and you only have first-level weapons? The analogy for this year's test's imbalance is very simple as that...

LEAKED ANSWERS

For a price of roughly 20 bucks, you can have all the answers to your test package of a subject for the exam. (Image source: @ffadhila on Twitter)

So you think that questions for National Exam is secure? You are wrong, outright wrong. The problem is that every year, these can be leaked, even with the over-the-top security. How it is leaked is totally out of my business and of course a mystery in the same time, and whenever the answers for most questions in every packet are "on sale", everyone gets mental, every. single. time.

Most students who are fighting for their graduation will depend on one of these because in their minds these are 100% accurate. But do you know that NOT every question's answer leaked are always right? Yup, you can't be too much dependent on these, except that this year, like I said, pretty much plagiarized PISA and tests of same purpose. And what happened before the tests go? Those who sell the leaked answers raised the price so that it can give profit to them.

This issue always come as the exam goes, and it is always on repeat...

SO LOOKING AT THIS POST, ARE YOU GOING TO GO AGAINST THE NATIONAL EXAM, TO THE POINT THAT YOU WANT IT TO BE NON-EXISTENT?

Sure this post highlighted the dark sides that happened in this year's national exam, but trust me, what I was doing was initially true (referring to the statement of the above question) but then my heart changed as I dug deeper to this issue and came up with a new answer: National Exam should be fixed; As someone who tasted two National exams before, all I can say is just make the exam a benchmark for all schools nationwide (read: reposition). The over-the-top difficulty this year has been despised by most students, and not all regions received certain topics of particular subjects due to resources. With this, lesser stress levels should be achieved and pointless answer leaks should be gone. Fair things like these will lead into a detailed benchmark results and each school will have a good portion of enlightenment of particular topics by looking at the benchmark results. This will lead into every student's success in graduating from Junior High and High School.

Everyone who is disgusted with this year's National Exam wanted bring back the system that is called EBTANAS, acronym of "National-Scale Final Level of Study Evaluation" in Indonesian. This test emphasizes on every student's evaluation of their study, and evaluation here refers to the whole study process the students had with all related components inside from the beginning to the end of their study, and whether the study process in question has the student reached their goal or not nationally. The result will be used as a mean to control and rate the function and the performance of all components in order to achieve a spot-on quality. Also from this result, if the result is good enough then the enhancement will take place, otherwise there will be improvement to attain the spot-on quality, all this makes up for a benchmark where it evaluates all of the school's components, including those involved in the student's studying process. In other words, it IS a benchmark tool, and that has summed what #TolakUN's actual purpose is.

Unfortunately due to the fact that the minister wanted to show the world that Indonesia's education is one of the best the world has to offer, the National Exam is born, and EBTANAS is killed (sort of...). Sadly it is far from that; even an extravagant result in the National Exam doesn't make them aces in state university selection tests.

CHAPTER 1 CONCLUSION

The National Exam this year has been everything but usual, only this time International-level questions are used, and it doubled the stress of every student. There even existed suicide after doing exams because the person in question knew that the person couldn't do his/her best, but she/he didn't even know what his/her result is. The sudden statement of the Minister of Education has led to this year's outrage, and leaked answers were also now a highly sought-after solution for this year's exam due to difficulty, although that it always happen every year in National Exam. The only thing that they wanted to is to make everything as normal as EBTANAS, where everything they would have can be a reference to make it to the next level of education.

Special thanks to http://tolakujiannasional.com/ (an Indonesian site), a movement to stop all the blatant psychological madness that is National Exam. The movement will hopefully fix the exam to make it act as a "benchmark" for schools and will promise a better way to measure everyone's education. This is what they envision a normal final exam held by school in which the questions all pertain to what everyone has taught for three years of their education, both Junior High and High School, and a true reference measure for their future education. You guys are a great bunch!

With the conclusion of the first chapter, the second chapter will come up. This post will expose more acts that humiliates Indonesia in the world, and expect hotter wordings as we will play in the online scope!

~[R]