Do we truly have to construct writing assessment in National Examination?

National examination has mainly been government concern to generate qualified

graduates after going through learning activities at school. This important test is designed in such
ways; therefore, the items produced have passed through some essential processes which ensure
the quality of the items. Relating to the English subject, the teachers are given few guidelines
what to teach. The materials are always those which will appear in National Examination. The
teachers, therefore, have clear instructions which are able to be developed and to be applied into
effective methods and meaningful activities.
Standar kelulusan siswa (SKL) are guidelines to provide the teacher materials that will
show up in National Examination. It is education national standard minimun for the graduates. In
other words, it is some skills and knowledge obtained after learning activities. The students will
not be passed and graduated from the school if they have not acquired competence as written in
SKL. This SKL, later on, will be specified to be Core Competence and Basic Competence.
According to SKL, some skills such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing are necessary to
be taught to the students included the specific topics.
One focus for this topic is writing as in SKL and relate to National Examination. The
students learn to write, because this skill can encourage students to be more productive and
creative in language competence. This skill can improve students ability in expressing their idea,
opinions or feelings in written form. It helps to consolidate their grasp of vocabulary and
structure, and complements the other language skills. So, writing is necessary to learn by the
students. If the students are able in writing skill, it means that they can produce a language. They
can express themselves with their ability in vocabulary, structures, and the other language
components on their essay to gain the information. The writer believes that writing ability can
influence the others language skills. The ability to write is fundamental aim in language learning.
Writing has an important role in language competence.
In SKL, the writing is also clearly stated including what to teach to the students. For
example, the SKL for English in Senior High School requires the students to be able to express
interpersonal and transactional written text both formally and informally, to write also in form of

genres such as recount, narrative, procedure, descriptive, news item, and others. The goals have
also been set such as arranging jumbled sentences into meaningful and correct paragraph (for
genres) and filling the blank to the short text. These goals, later on, are items that will be appear
in National Examination. The question comes up if the National Examination consists of
Multiple Choices, how can we really measure the writing test? Although the SKL states the
writing along with what to teach, the national examination does not include the particular writing
test. Even if the national examination includes some items which require the test taker to arrange
the sentence and to fill in the blank to the short text, the test taker only has to choose the right
answer, there is no writing at all. In fact, these items are for reading test, not writing test.
Because if it is writing test, there should be items that make the students express their idea or
only arrange the paragraph by writing the answer on answer sheet.