Minister Nadiem Makarim Reforms Indonesian State University Entrance System

TheIndonesia.id - Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology (Mendikbudristek) Nadiem Anwar Makarim launched a new transformation of state university (PTN) entrance selection through Merdeka Learning episode 22.

"This selection transformation of the PTN entrance is needed to bridge the policy transformations that have been carried out in primary and secondary education and higher education," said Makarim in Jakarta, Wednesday, September 7, 2022.

A new selection system is needed to ensure the transformation of primary and secondary education and higher education. Some principles are changing including encouraging comprehensive learning, focusing more on reasoning abilities, and being more inclusive and accommodating to the diversity of students.

"Currently we have three selection paths, namely national selection based on achievement, national selection based on tests, and independent selection by PTN," the Go-Jek founder explained.

The national selection based on achievement, he continued, separated prospective students based on majors in secondary education. As a result, students do not have the opportunity to explore their interests and talents. Then only certain subjects are considered in the selection, which then had an impact on other subjects being considered less important, and the focus of learning is not comprehensive.

In the future, he continued, the selection will focus on giving high rewards for overall learning success in secondary education. This is done by giving a minimum weight of 50 percent for the average score of report cards for all subjects. By giving this high weight, it is hoped that students will be encouraged to excel in all subjects holistically.

As for the rest of the weighting, a maximum of 50 percent is taken from the components of interest and talent. It aims to encourage students to explore their interests and talents more deeply.

“Thus, students are encouraged to focus on the overall learning and explore their interests and talents from an early age. Later, students are expected to realize that all subjects are important and that they build their achievements according to their interests and talents," said Makarim who had studied abroad from high school in Singapore to a master's degree at Harvard University in the United States.

The national selection based on achievement replaces the current National Selection to Enter PTN (SNMPTN). Next, the national selection is based on tests, in which the selection will focus on measuring reasoning and problem-solving abilities.

Previously, the Joint Selection Entrance PTN (SBMPTN) exams were conducted using a lot of material from many subjects which indirectly led to a decline in the quality of learning and it was more difficult for underprivileged students to be successful on this path.

“This time is different. In this selection, there is no longer a subject test, but only a scholastic test that measures four things, namely cognitive potential, mathematical reasoning, literacy in Indonesian, and literacy in English. The questions in this selection will focus on students' reasoning abilities, not memorization," he said.

Thus, the selection scheme becomes fairer and every student has the opportunity to succeed on the national selection path based on the test.

Then, in the transformation of the independent selection to enter PTN conducted by each university, the government arranges for the selection to be more transparent by requiring PTNs to do several things before and after the selection process independently.

Before the independent selection, PTN is required to announce several things, including the number of prospective students who will be accepted by each study program/faculty; the assessment method for prospective students consisting of independent tests, collaborative tests through a consortium of tertiary institutions, utilizing scores from national selection results based on tests, as well as other required assessment methods for prospective students; as well as the number of fees or the method of determining the number of fees charged to prospective students who pass the selection.

After the independent selection, PTNs are required to announce several things, including the number of participants who passed the selection and the remaining unfilled quotas; a period of five working days after the announcement of the selection results for complaint or rebuttal; and procedures for rebutting the selection results.