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The government must abide by a Supreme Court ruling and take steps to improve the quality of education before another national exam can be administered, experts said on Wednesday.

Zainal Arifin Mukhtar, an expert on state administrative law at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, said the court ruling instructed the government to improve teaching standards and school facilities, as well as to provide all students nationwide with equal and full access to information, before it could conduct national exams.

“The verdict is clear. The government cannot conduct national exams until it has followed the instructions issued in the verdict,” Zainal said.

The Supreme Court ruling, which was made on Sept. 14 but only announced on Tuesday, was the latest step in a legal process that began in 2007, when a group of students and parents filed a lawsuit against the government at the Central Jakarta District Court, seeking to eliminate the national exam.

The suit accused the state of denying the students the right to an education because they were unable to attend university after failing the national exam. It also said the test was unfair because education standards were not uniform across the country.

The court ruled against the government and the Jakarta High Court upheld the verdict on Dec. 6, 2007.

Muhamad Isnur, a lawyer at the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH) representing the complainants, said the verdict calls for at least a short-term moratorium on the national exam. The exam is taken by millions of junior and senior high school students nationwide each year.

The exams have not only been a major focus for students but also for schools, which are eager to score impressive pass rates to burnish their reputations and attract more students, along with their fees.

Upgrading teaching standards, however, will not be an easy task for the National Education Ministry. About 50 percent of educators teach subjects that are different from their academic backgrounds, according to Giri Suryatmana, secretary of the ministry’s Directorate General of Teacher Training.

Giri said that of the 2.9 million teachers nationwide, only 600,000 were certified and 1.2 million of them did not even have college degrees.

Sulistyo, head of the Indonesian Teachers Union (PGRI), said the Supreme Court ruling highlighted the importance of a national movement focused on improving the quality of teachers.

He asked the government to stay faithful to its own national education standards, including those on the quality of teachers, education, school facilities and the graduates themselves, who should be competent in the subjects they have studied.

“To be honest, many teachers are under so much pressure. Many have been pushed to help students cheat during national exams,” Sulistyo said. “This problem needs to be solved.”

Arief Rachman, an education expert and professor at the State University of Jakarta, said the ruling should be interpreted to mean equality in education for all students.

“Students in Merauke do not have the same access as students in Jakarta or other big cities, for example,” Arief said. “But they are all assessed by the same exams. That is not fair.”

Seto Mulyadi, chairman of the National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas Anak), said the national exams had left many students depressed and fearful.

Seto said many students were smart, but they failed to pass the exam because “sometimes they fail in one subject. That is not fair.”