Education Ministry to Postpone Implementation National Assessment to September 2021

Minister of Education and Culture Nadiem Makarim (Photo by: Documentation of Cabinet Secretariat, Public Relations Division).

Ministry of Education and Culture has announced it will postpone the implementation of the 2021 National Assessment (AN) from March to September-October.

Minister of Education and Culture Nadiem Makarim ensured that the National Assessment would still be carried out this year to find out the learning outcome and how big the gap loss was due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to him, if the AN was not implemented this year, the data would be difficult to acquire.

“The AN still needs to be implemented. Otherwise, we can’t calculate the learning loss and find out which schools need our help the most. This is what the Ministry and the House want,” the Minister said in a working meeting with Commission X of the House of Representatives, Wednesday (20/01).

The postponement, the Minister said, aims to ensure more optimal logistics preparations, infrastructure, and health protocols. In addition, the remaining time can be used to disseminate information and coordinate more massively with regional governments on the implementation of the AN, he said.

In March-April 2021, the Ministry will only carry out stages of coordination meetings, dissemination of information, and technical implementation of AN preparation. Furthermore, in April-August, AN simulation will be carried out in educational units. Then in September-October, the Assessment will be held, the results of which will be announced in December 2021.

The Assessment, the Minister stated, is not the same as the National Exam (UN), both in terms of function and substance. The AN is designed to monitor and evaluate the education system, as well as improve the primary and secondary education system.

The AN, Nadiem said, is not an evaluation system for individual students. Evaluation of the competence of students, he further said, is the responsibility of teachers and schools. It also will not add to the student’s burden because it has no consequences for students and is not a requirement for new student admission (PPDB), he added.

“Due to the pandemic, in 2020, we didn’t implement exams on a national scale and in 2021, if it is not implemented, we will not have baseline data points, meaning that we will not be able to find out which schools and areas are the most disadvantaged. If we can’t find out which schools are lagging behind, we can’t make budgeting and assistance strategies for schools that need assistance,” he said.

For the record, the National Assessment consists of Minimum Competency Assessment (AKM), Character Survey, and Learning Environment Survey. The AKM is designed to measure students’ achievement from cognitive learning outcomes, namely, literacy and numeracy.

Students and teachers take part in the Character Survey to measure attitudes, habits, values ​​as a result of noncognitive learning. Meanwhile, the head of the Education unit will participate in the Learning Environment Survey to measure the quality of learning and the school climate that supports learning. (PR of Ministry of Education and Culture/UN) (FI/MUR)