TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The National Commission for Child Protection (KPAI) demanded President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo evaluate Education and Culture Minister Muhadjir Effendy over this year's plummeting national exam (UN) scores.

“The president should evaluate the minister of education and culture,” said KPAI commissioner for Education Retno Listyarti today in her office.

Based on the reports received by KPAI, Retno explained, many questions for Junior High School (SMP) students were not based on learning material or that the students had not learned. “We’ve received a lot of information that some questions in UN SMP were learning material for Senior High School (SMA) students,” she underlined.

Read: Starting 2018, Students Can Print Their Own National Exam Results

Retno appealed to the ministry to not blame the students for the declining scoret, but rather the questions that were unsuitable for their education level.

Retno also lamented the ministry’s regulation to delay the annoucement of the UN results twice although the students could obtain the information online. Previously, the announcement was postponed from Wednesday, May 23 to Friday, May 25, 2018. “It could affect the children.”

Meanwhile, Education and Culture Minister Muhadjir Effendy admitted the average scores of 2018 UN SMP was dipping. “There was indeed a decrease because many HOTS [High Order Thinking Skills] questions, the scores in SMP have terribly dropped,” said Muhadjir on May 23, adding that the decrease was related to the integrated implementation of the computer-based national exam (UNBK).

TAUFIQ SIDDIQ