DIAGNOSTIC ASSESSMENT TRY-OUT AS AN EFFORT TO IMPROVE STUDENT READINESS IN TAKING NATIONAL EXAM IN SOLOK, INDONESIA

In Indonesia, the MONE (The Minister of National Education) has been implementing National Exams for some subjects at the Primary and Secondary School level and setting up higher minimum competency grade in each year (3.01 in 2004 and 4.01 in 2005) for students to pass the exams. This decision has made all components of education to take consideration seriously about the quality of education in each different region. This paper describes one of the efforts done by the Distance Education Teacher Training Development Center, Bandung to initiate a special program to improve the quality of education effectively and comprehensively through an integrated approach in both programs and the community involvement which has been tried-out in Solok, West Sumatera Indonesia. This paper eplains a model of Diagnostic Assessment in some subjects, the implementation of the workshops and training, and the try outs that were implemented at Primary Six, Form three and Form six in different subjects:Mathematics, English and Bahasa Indonesia, Economics. The results and the findings of the program and the recommendations for future project are also presented in this paper.