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More than a month after a national exam cheating scandal broke, the House of Representatives is still waiting for an explanation and it looks increasingly likely that lawmakers’ request that the cheats not be allowed to graduate will be ignored.

“We are still waiting for a complete account from the Ministry [of National Education] and the National Education Standardization Board [BSNP],” said Heri Akhmadi, deputy chairman of House Commission X, which oversees education. “We have demanded they hand over all the data related to the issue before the end of our term in September.”

Heri said the commission would also ask whether the national exam itself was meeting its basic objectives.

“The national exam has failed as a benchmark for education,” he said. “Why has it failed? Because the results and data from the exam are in doubt because of the cheating.”

The cheating scandal was revealed when university supervisors found that an estimated 5,000 students from 36 schools had written the same wrong answers for questions on the national exam. The supervisors suspected that the students had used incorrect answer keys supplied by unidentified sources, possibly with assistance from teachers or school administrators.

In response, the BSNP annulled the first national test for the students involved and organizing a repeat test. The House approved the repeat test on the condition that the BSNP provide an explanation of the cheating and punish those involved by not allowing them to move up to the next grade.

However, Darmaningtyas, an education expert, said he doubted that schools would punish national exam cheats by not allowing them to graduate.

Darmaningtyas said that he expected those students involved in the scandal who passed the retest would be allowed to graduate.

“The students who fail [to go to the next level] will only be those who couldn’t satisfactorily complete the retest,” he said.

Mungin Eddy Wibowo, head of the BSNP, denied the claim, saying, “We have given a list of the cheats to the schools involved, including the names of teachers who helped their students cheat.”

Mungin said that the authority to punish the cheats belonged to the individual schools, adding that “the sanctions [for teachers] include administrative and criminal charges.”

However, Mungin refused to say how many students had failed the national test due to cheating.

“It isn’t appropriate that the list of cheats be shared outside the schools concerned,” he said.