Do Not Let Students Fail PPDB Negeri Drop Out Of School

Officers, parents of students, and prospective students have just checked the registration status of New Student Admissions (PPDB) at SMK Negeri 1, Jakarta, Monday (10/6/2024). (ANTARA/Bayu Pratama S. /rwa)

JAKARTA The New Student Admission Period (PPDB) has ended, but the process still leaves a lot of homework (PR). Because of the unfair PPDB, millions of students are threatened with dropping out of school.

As in previous years, the practice of data manipulation, chaotic zoning system to gratification also colored the implementation of this year's PPDB.

But there is one thing that is more worrying, namely the finding of the Indonesian Education Monitoring Network (JPPI) about millions of Indonesian children being threatened with not going to school because they failed to qualify at the state PPDB.

The choice of private schools is also considered burdensome for the economy of students from the middle to lower class.

"Meanwhile, data from the Ministry of Education and Culture, Research and Technology in 2023, 10,523,879 students were found to be discriminated against in private schools because they had to pay," said National Coordinator of JPPI Ubaid Matraji.

The Ombudsman of the Republic of Indonesia (ORI) said the issue of implementing PPDB led to a number of student admission schemes. The affirmation pathway scheme, for example, provides space for data manipulation practices to gratification practices.

The non-compliance with the regulation, schools that do not comply with the provisions, almost in every province there is. There are even provinces that do not comply with the regulations, the percentage is in each school at 17 percent, 13 percent, even higher than that," said ORI chairman Mokhammad Najih.

"This illustrates that the route is problematic, so we need to review it again. Paths that have the potential to cause irregularities, non-compliance with regulations must be reduced," he added.

Complaints related to the implementation of PPDB from various systems have always occurred every year, since this policy was implemented effectively in 2017. In practice, there are four PPDB pathways that are opened in each region, namely zoning routes, achievement routes, affirmation channels, and finally the transfer route for parents/guardians and/or pathways for teachers or education staff.

The zoning route, which has the largest portion in the PPDB route, is 50 percent, actually has a noble goal, namely as an effort to accelerate the policy of equitable distribution of education quality carried out with a geospatial-based service approach.

With the zoning route, it is hoped that equitable educational services will be created so that there will be no more terms 'kasta' and favorite schools in the education system.

However, with the mode that prospective students are accepted into favorite schools through zoning channels, a number of frauds are found in various regions in Indonesia, ranging from buying and selling chairs, manipulating family cards (KK), to storing prospective students by regional officials.

PPDB gaps do not only occur in the zoning route. On the achievement path, there is a fake certificate phenomenon, while counterfeiting of poverty status also breaks down for the affirmation path.

According to Ubaid, the path of achievement is one of the most prone to fraud because it does not have a clear size.

"This achievement path is very dark. In contrast to the affirmation pathway that can be checked through BPJS or KIP, and the zoning calculated based on distance, the achievement path does not have a clear measure," said Ubaid in a statement received by VOI.

"The document verification is not transparent, so many parents are confused when their child's certificate of achievement is not recognized," he added.

This problem is exacerbated by the existence of 'paths' that are not official but are widely used by the community.

This gratification path can infiltrate the zoning and achievement pathways. For example, zoning distance can be regulated by schools or achievements whose criteria are not clear. Without transparency, this process is prone to misuse," said Ubaid again.

This series of fraud not only disturbs students' mentality, but also threatens to drop out of school. Based on data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) 2023, non-school children (ATS) are still found at each level, ranging from elementary schools (0.67 percent), junior high schools (6.93 percent), and high schools/vocational schools (21.61 percent).

Meanwhile, from the JPPI calculation, the number of ATS is estimated to reach three million children. Data from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology (Kemendikbudristek) in 2023 states that more than 10.52 million students are discriminated against for registering in paid private schools.

Based on this fact, it is one proof that the central, regional, and even schools consider PPDB to be a regular routine and are actually crowded with people who only want to make a profit for the season.

The failure in the country's PPDB to force school students in paid private sectors is considered burdensome, especially the lower middle class. Moreover, it is not uncommon to find cases of prospective students not passing the affirmation route even though they meet the conditions of forcing them to go to private schools for payment.

In the end, those who were not accepted by the state PPDB chose not to go to school because they did not have the money.

"Save the children who failed PPDB 2024, by providing seats in private schools free of charge. Otherwise, they are currently in danger of dropping out of school, due to high cost constraints in private schools," Ubaid asserted.

In fact, not a few of them are children who receive KIP and KJP who fail on various PPDB routes. They have great potential to drop out of school if they fail to enter public schools," concluded Ubaid.

In the future, he hopes that the PPDB system will be more just because basically all children have the same rights. Don't let the term failed PPDB, because this is the entrance for children to go to school. If the entrance alone is not fair, then many children are discriminated against.

Finally, Ubaid emphasized that free schools are a mandate from Article 31 of the 1945 Constitution which states that every citizen has the right to education and the government must pay for it.