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Parents of a sixth grade student at an area elementary school have filed a complaint with the National Commission for Child Protection claiming the school provided students with  answers to the national exams prior to testing in early May.

The parents allege the school, identified as SDN 06 Pesanggrahan Elementary School in South Jakarta, provided answer initially to a handful of students then had them to to distribute answers to the rest of the student body via cellphone.  These efforts, the parents have informed the commission, involved their own son, identified only as M.A.

Commission Chairman Arist Merdeka Sirait confirmed the complaint was officially filed on Saturday.

“We believe there is evidence of systematic fraud,” Arist told the Globe on Sunday. “Additionally, we believe this not only occurred at M.A.'s school, but others as well.”

Arist said the Commission will conduct an investigation into the case. But even if the investigation reveals that the school did in fact supply students with answers beforehand, as the Commission expects, it will not hand out a punishment.

It's not fair if the school helped its students to cheat during the national exams,” he said. “But, [the Ministry is] not demanding the guilty parties be penalized,” he said.

He explained what the commission wanted to get out of these national exams was an evaluation of the exams themselves. 

“An evaluation of the national exams is needed." Arist said. "Teaching students to cheat, and to work together to pass during the finals completely undermines our ability to evaluate the quality of Indonesia's education and the value of this exam.”

Arist explained the parents first became aware of the potential fraud after M.A. returned home crying after the first day of exams in early May.

“M.A. allegedly told his parents that he could not keep lying,” Arist said. “And informed them that the week before the exams, the “smart” students were gathered around at his school and separated in groups.”

The students were then allegedly provided with answers to the national exams questions and told to distribute those answers to all students in their classrooms through mobile phones. Teachers urged the students not to inform anyone of this matter, Arist said.

He did not comment on who at the school had allegedly “gathered” the students together and provided them with the answers to the questions.

This story is developing.