Education Ministry Issues National Assessment Policy

Minister of Education and Culture Nadiem Makarim (Photo by: Documentation of Cabinet Secretariat PR)

In a bid to improve evaluation system of education, Ministry of Education and Culture issued a National Assessment policy, designed not only as a substitute for national exams and national standard school exams but as a marker of a paradigm shift in educational evaluation, Minister of Education and Culture Nadiem Makarim said in a statement uploaded on the official Twitter account of the Ministry @kemdikbud.ri, Saturday (10/10).

Nadiem highlighted that the National Assessment policy allows the evaluation and mapping of the education system in the forms of inputs, processes, and results, instead of evaluating individual student achievement.

“The portrait of service and performance of each school from the results of the National Assessment will then become a mirror for us to reflect on, to accelerate the improvement of the quality of Indonesian education,” Nadiem said.

The National Assessment, the Minister said, consists of three parts, namely Minimum Competency Assessment (AKM), Character Survey, and Learning Environment Survey.

The Minimum Competency Assessment, Nadiem said, was designed to measure students’ achievement from cognitive learning outcomes, namely, literacy and numeracy. “These two aspects of minimum competence are a requirement for students to contribute to society, regardless of the field of work and career they want to pursue in the future,” he said.

Focusing on literacy and numeracy skills, Nadiem added, does not undermine the importance of the subject. The method will help students to learn other fields of science by thinking and digesting information in written form and in numbers or quantitively, he explained.

“Literacy and numeracy skills will impact all subjects taught and studied by our students,” the Minister said.

The Character Survey, Nadiem went on to say, was designed to measure students’ achievement from social-emotional learning outcomes in order to develop students with instilled Pancasila ideology.”The six main indicators of (Character Survey) are faithfulness and devotion to God Almighty and having noble characters, global diversity, independence, mutual cooperation, critical reasoning, and creativity,” he said.

The Learning Environment Survey, Nadiem stated, was designed to evaluate and map the supporting aspects of the quality of learning in the school environment.

“The 2021 National Assessment is conducted as a baseline mapping of the real quality of education in the field so that there are no consequences for schools or students,” Nadiem said. The Ministry, he added, will also assist schools and education offices by providing a report on the results of an assessment that explains the strength profile and areas of improvement in each school and region.

“Let us all together support the implementation of the National Assessment starting in 2021 as part of Indonesia’s education reform,” he concluded. (UN)

Translated by: Fairuzzamani Inayatillah
Reviewed by: Mia M. Bonaedy