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Hopes for corruption-free national examinations for senior high school students have suffered a blow after the Indonesian State Universities Rectors Forum said it didn’t have the time or ability to organize and supervise the exams.

After a meeting of the forum on Sunday night, Priyo Suprobo, rector of the Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology, said the rectors had decided to decline the ministry’s request to print, duplicate, distribute and ensure security ahead of the problem-plagued national exam.

“We will leave it to the agency [National Education Standardization Agency] as the universities don’t have the printing capacity to make the deadline,” Priyo said.

Cheating on the exams is so rampant that universities largely ignore the results, choosing to conduct their own entrance tests.

Students are typically encouraged to cheat by their teachers and schools in collusion with corrupt officials from the Ministry of Education and local governments.

The Education Ministry had asked the rectors forum to take over administration of the exams from the standardization agency, known as BSNP.

Djoko Santoso, rector of the Bandung Institute Technology (ITB) and chairman of the rectors forum, also said on Monday that the forum had rejected the offer because state universities did not have the capacity to print millions of test papers.

“There are no other reasons, such as we don’t want to be involved in a tainted exam,” he said. “In fact, we are still going to monitor the exam.”

Education Minister Mohammad Nuh confirmed on Monday that the forum had rejected the request, but said it would still support the exam process.

“The universities understand it is a good idea for them to take over the printing process,” Nuh said.

“However, if they don’t have the ability to print, we should find another solution.”

He emphasized that universities were more focused on monitoring the exams, adding that the quality of the monitoring should be improved and the possibility of the exam being leaked should be eliminated.

“Even though the universities are not involved in the printing process, they should be still involved in the monitoring system,” he said.

Priyo said it was unlikely the universities would be in a position to print and secure the test papers next year, either. He was reluctant to comment on whether concerns about being tainted by the fraud that accompanied the national exam played a role in the forum’s decision.

“Let’s just say that the safety of the national examination is the responsibility of the local teachers and the government,” he said, adding that the universities still wanted to assist in eliminating fraud.

BSNP head Djemari Mardapi said the agency would evaluate the printing process.

“The task will be given to regional printing shops. We will ask for input from regions on which printing companies are most suitable and ready to tender,” Djemari said.

He said security must be improved, noting that printing companies had leaked the exams in the past.

“The printers must have special monitoring room that unauthorized people cannot enter. And exam packages A and B should not be mixed.”

(To combat cheating, the agency usually prints at least two sets of exams, meaning not every student takes the same exam.)

The BSNP will still ask the universities to help prevent exams from being leaked by becoming involved in supervising printing shops.

Nuh said a no-leak guarantee could not be given. “Who can guarantee [that there won’t be leaked exam papers]? What if it is done by the schools? The most important thing is not the guarantee, but how all of us can monitor the national exam,” he said.

He said that to lower the likelihood of leaks, “we will distribute lists detailing the ways they can occur.”

BSNP member Mungin Eddy Wibowo said the exams should be checked and ready for printing by the end of this month, and the agency would work with the Education Assessment Center, a body responsible for ensuring the correctness of the exam materials.

Exams for high school students are scheduled to be held from March 22-26.

Junior high school students are slated to take exams from March 29 to April 1.

Senior high students will be tested in six subjects, while junior students will be tested in four.