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With the sharp drop in the pass rate in this year’s national exams indicating less cheating, authorities are again pushing forward with the plan to use the results as a prerequisite for getting into a state university.

National Education Standardization Agency (BNSP) head Djemari Mardapi told the Jakarta Globe that because this year’s exams were “prepared better” than in 2009, the agency would stick to its plan to phase out university entrance exams and use the national exam results.

“The entrance exams will still apply this year and next, but we plan to phase them out by 2012,” he said.

The proposal was made last year when universities for the first time were involved in monitoring the national exams as part of a wider plan to formulate a single entrance exam for state universities.

Senior high school students now must pass the national exams before sitting an entrance exam for university.

The plan was put on hold in June in the wake of cheating by 5,000 students at 18 schools.

Universities demanded that they be involved in monitoring the exams if they were ever to replace the university entrance tests.

Djemari said this year’s national exams had seen a huge improvement in terms of monitoring and structure, despite the sharp drop in the pass rate.

This year, 89.6 percent of 1.5 million senior students who took the exams passed, down from 95 percent last year, due in large part to tighter monitoring to prevent cheating.

“We’ll work with the universities to evaluate the exams and see what improvements can be implemented next year,” Djemari said.

Surabaya State University president Haris Supratno backed the plan, saying it would prove more cost- and time-efficient and help the students by not making them study for two sets of exams.

“It will also eliminate the need for exam jockeys,” he added, referring to cheating where a student hires another person to take the exam for them.

Haris said the unified exam would feature elements from the entrance exams not currently part of the national exams.

“There will be the obligatory psychological profiling and tests specific to the candidate’s planned field of study,” he said.

However, not everyone is on board. Indonesian Independent Teachers Association chairman Suparman opposes the idea of unifying the national and university entrance exams.

“The national exams should only be used as an indication of the national education system,” he said.

Colleges had far more specific and rigorous criteria when it came to selecting students, he said.

“University entrance exams obviously cover far more than the token math, Indonesian and English that students are tested on in the national exams,” Suparman said.

Indonesian University Rectors Council chairman Muslihar Kasim said that although the 2010 national exams had been better organized and were more credible, there was still some way to go before they could replace the university entrance exams.

“I was involved in the process this year, and I can say there have been some improvements,” he said.

Muslihar said one of the main sticking points was the secure printing and distribution of exam question sheets.

Printing is now contracted out to a private bidder appointed by the BNSP. In future, Muslihar said, it should be done by universities, as with the entrance exams.

“We’d prefer the task be assigned to universities that have their own printing presses,” he said, adding that there was tight security in place to prevent question sheets from being leaked.

“Those who work at university presses are prohibited from making phone calls on the job, for instance,” Muslihar said