An Evaluation of the National Examination Policy in the Indonesian Education System

Abstract

This thesis evaluates the development and implementation of the national examination policy in Indonesia. The policy has resulted in public objections and disputes between the Indonesian government and the public since it was first introduced in 2005 (Mappiasse, 2014). The disputes were caused by the multiple high-stakes purposes of the national examination and its perceived negative consequences for schooling (National Examination Victim Advocacy, 2013; Mappiasse, 2014). The national examination has been used for varying purposes—to decide student graduation and to sort students and place them in competition for entry to the next level of education, as well as for school accountability. These high-stakes purposes of the national examination produced negative consequences for schooling, for example, various reports of students cheating during the national examinations (LaForge, 2013; Mappiasse, 2014; Sembiring, 2013). A qualitative case study was used to explore the rationale of the Indonesian government underlying the development and implementation of the national examination policy and schools’ response to the policy. The use of qualitative case study aimed to represent all stakeholders in the policy in an equal way. The case study was conducted in three different institutions: a school and the Municipal Education Office (micro implementation level) as well as the Ministry of Education (macro policy level). This multi-layered exploration of the national examination policy aimed to reveal the underlying causes of the disputes between the government and the public driven by the high-stakes purposes of the national examination and its unintended consequences for schooling. The data collection phase of the study took place in 2016. Data analysis was conducted in 2017–2018. Three main data collection methods were employed: interviews, observations and document analysis. This study employed institutional complexity theory, as proposed by Greenwood, Raynard, Kodeih, Micelotta, & Lounsbury (2011), as a framework to evaluate the national examination policy and its implementation. The rationale of using institutional complexity theory was the development and implementation of the national examination policy involved various institutions with distinctive institutional logic dan demand. The framework’s main argument is that institutions are confronted with institutional complexity when they are facing pressures or demands from external institutions to which they need to adhere in order to obtain legitimacy and the necessary resources to ensure their survival prospects (Greenwood et al., 2011). Institutions operate in a particular field, and various institutions in the field are guided by distinct and possibly conflicting institutional logics. Institutional logic is an overarching set of principles that define what constitutes the best possible means to organise institutional practices and to achieve institutional goals (Kraatz & Block, 2008). Institutional complexity theory centres its attention on exploring how institutions experience and respond to institutional complexity (Greenwood et al., 2011). The results of the case study from the macro policy level showed that there were multiple rationalities or logics from various institutions that shaped the development and subsequent implementation of the national examination policy. The World Bank was a dominant institution that advocated that the Indonesian government adopt the logic of market competition in education and develop a test-based accountability policy that sought to improve the quality of education as well as the competitiveness of national workforces in the globalised economy. The World Bank’s policy ideas were rationalised by the state institutions as a compelling way to improve the national economy, and thus the national examination policy was created and implemented to have multiple purposes. The multiple purposes of the national examination were enacted because of inconsistent institutional demands from the state institutions—the executive government, the legislative government, and the Ministry of Education. The results of the case study from the micro implementation level showed that the school faced various situations of institutional complexity in responding to the national examination policy. The institutional complexities faced by the school were derived from the high-stakes purposes of the national examination and institutional demands from the school’s stakeholders. The school was compelled to obtain high student national examination scores to maintain its performance and reputation in the eyes of the public in comparison to other schools. Meanwhile, parents, as well as students, competed for higher national examination scores to guarantee students admission to a high-performing school. The complexities faced by the school, parents and students led to some unintended consequences of the national examination policy, reported variously as students cheating in the national examination, an emphasis on teaching and learning in test preparation that may have limited development of students’ critical thinking skills, and the existence of a “brokerage industry” in the school-admission process. This study concludes that the national examination policy is part of a global phenomenon in education, called the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), which holds the logic of market competition in education as manifested in the implementation and the use of national testing policies to hold schools accountable for student achievement and to increase competition among schools based on tests results (Sahlberg, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2016). The Indonesian government, which decided to adopt the logic of market competition in education, needed to make the logic work in its local context despite cultural and ideological differences. Eventually, the weak state conditions hampered the contextualisation efforts by the Indonesian government. At the macro policy level, the weak state meant a lack of capacity among the state institutions to formulate national policies (Datta et al., 2011) together with the hierarchical structure and patrimonial culture among the various institutions (Bjork, 2005; Syahril, 2016). This condition led to complexity in the development of the national examination policy and resulted in the use of the national examination for multiple high-stakes purposes. At the micro implementation level, the weak state meant rampant corruption practices in Indonesia (Transparency International, 2016). This condition led to the prevalence of systemic corruption practices by administrators, teachers and students as an unintended consequence of the high-stakes national examination system. This study contributes to research in Indonesia by providing an in-depth exploration on how national examination policy was developed and implemented, and why controversies over the policy emerged. The present study also contributes to institutional complexity theory by exploring institutional complexity in the context of Eastern and developing country, instead of Western developed context where most of the study of the institutional complexity theory has been done.