Why Indonesia Changed Its High School Exam Scale to 200-800
The Ministry of Education and Culture has changed the scoring scale for senior high school academic ability tests for the 2026 academic year.
Jakarta - The Indonesian government has updated the assessment system for high school academic tests (TKA) beginning in the 2026 academic year, altering the scoring range from 0-100 to 200-800. The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education announced this change via Ministerial Decree No. 56/2026, according to Toni Toharudin, head of the ministry's Primary and Secondary Education Policy Agency.
Toni emphasized that this transition doesn't modify the knowledge being tested or the test's difficulty. Instead, it impacts how scores are reported. He explained that the TKA results are assessed through a psychometric method using item response theory (IRT), considering the difficulty of each question as well as each student's estimated ability.
The new 200-800 scoring system is intended to offer a more precise measure of student performance, facilitating better academic selection and skill mapping. This shift aims to clarify that a TKA score does not represent a direct percentage of correct answers - for example, a 600 score does not mean a student answered 60% of questions correctly. The change is solely to enhance the accuracy, fairness, and interpretation of TKA results.
Written by urgent.news from Tempo.co English's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
