By Pak Ketut
The Indonesian government through the Ministry of Education and Culture has made various innovation in the educational system, including the National Examination which has been changed to the National Assessment known as the Minimum Competency Assessment (Assessment Kompetensi Minimum, a.k.a AKM). This AKM adopts the form of international assessment standards such as the assessment carried out by PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment). AKM will assess students’ abilities in the fields of numeracy and literacy, not subject based as in the previous exam. AKM no longer takes the form of multiple choice questions but adopts the form of questions based on higher-order thinking skills. AKM will be held for students in grades 5, 8 and 11 who are randomly selected by the government system from the Ministry of Education and Culture, meaning that AKM is not used to determine student graduation. The results of the AKM will be used as an assessment of school quality which will be compared with the results of assessments from other schools in one province and also with other schools throughout Indonesia. To pass each level of education, all students will follow the final assessment process at the end of each level, which is in class 6, 9 and 12 and the schools are given the authority to have own policies following the government rules and regulations.
The AKM certainly provides more benefits for students at Dyatmika School because they are used to have daily learning process which focus on practicing and completing tasks that require high-order thinking skills, not just memorising. Also supported by various exams from the Cambridge curriculum that also require the ability to solve questions that challenge the numerical & literacy skills. The AKM is very relevant to the system of Cambridge assessment.