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Monday, June 18, 2007

Students attack school

Yemris Fointuna and Oyos Saroso H.N., The Jakarta Post, Kupang/Bandarlampung

Students at a senior vocational high school in East Nusa Tenggara rioted on Saturday after it was revealed that none of them had passed the national examinations.

Dozens of students at SMKN Boking in Timor Tengah Selatan regency attacked the school, breaking windows, desks, chairs and blackboards. No injuries were reported.

"Soon after they heard the announcement, the students gathered in the schoolyard and began pelting the school's windows with stones. Some entered the classrooms and destroyed everything in there," an anonymous witness said Sunday.

All 43 students at SMKN Boking, 300 kilometers to the east of Kupang, the provincial capital, failed their exams.

Timor Tengah Selatan Education Office head Marthen Nenabu admitted that the results of the exams were poor.

"The source of the failure was not just the teachers, but also the students, who were unable to do the exams. Why did they destroy the school?" Marthen asked.

He said he hoped the police would investigate the case and question the students.

"The perpetrators have to processed legally," he said.

Police were on guard at the school on Sunday morning, but were yet to question any of the students.

Kupang regency's SMU 2 Kupang Timur saw similar scenes after the exam results were announced. Police detained 20 students believed to have vandalized the school.

The East Nusa Tenggara Education Office said that of the 28,764 students who took the exams this year, 10,908 failed.

Results of the exams were announced nationally on Saturday, although official statistics on results across the country are yet to be released.

Meanwhile, in Bandarlampung, the percentage of students passing the exams rose from 92 percent last year to 93.26, although the announcement of the results in Lampung was still marked with concern.

A total of 400 students at three senior high schools in Lampung all failed the exams. The three were state senior high school SMU Abung Surakarta in North Lampung and two private senior high school in Central Lampung and Bandarlampung.

Hermansyah, head of the Lampung Education Office, said over the weekend that the failure to pass the exams was caused mainly by the poor quality of the teachers, a lack of teaching and learning facilities and poor management of the schools.

Up to 63,147 students in Lampung took part in this year's national examinations, with 44,567 senior high students and 18,580 vocational school students, Hermansyah said, adding that 4,277 of them had failed the exams.

Ahmad Alin, head of a private senior high school in Bandarlampung, expressed concern over the low pass rate at private schools in the area.

He said those who failed usually did not want to take a repeat examination and this meant that there was a greater number of students dropping out of the education system.

Soure : TheJakartaPost

by cluk at 1:39 PM |