Taufik Rahmadi (19) looked very serious paying attention to a test supervisor reading the questions to him. Later the supervisor asked him what choice of answers he would give. The young man often requested the supervisor to repeat the questions to make him assured of his answers.
Taufik cannot do the test by himself. As a person suffering from blindness, Taufik was helped by two supervisors to do the test. One would read out the test for him, the other one would write down what Taufik thought was the best answer.
Taufik is just one of 18 participants of UGM Written Test that is done simultaneously in four cities in Indonesia on Sunday (8/7). Taufik said he wanted to be a diplomat, hence he selected UGM’s International Relations programme as his first choice, Politics and Government Studies and English Literature as the second and third choices.
Other participants doing the test for the disabled people at UPN Veteran Yogyakarta are Miftakul Choirul Ilmi (19). The young man from Sidoarjo is also assisted by a supervisor who is a teacher at a school for people with special needs in Sleman. Like Taufik, Choirul also has sight impairs and wants to study International Relations. During the test, Rector of UGM came to see them and witness the process of the test for people with special needs.
Rustamaji, coordinator of health unit of the test, said there were 18 people with special needs of all the 60,563 participants in the four cities. “There are 9 people physically impaired people, 7 people with vision impairment and 2 people with hearing impairment,” he said.
UGM Student Unit for Disabled People also monitors the process of the test. Deputy Chairman of the Unit, Tio Tegar, said they would monitor directly how the test committee served the disabled people. “We want to ensure that the service is given accordingly,” he said.
Fitriana, a doctor from the medical team for the written test, said during the whole test no participants was given a serious treatment. The team consists of 100 paramedics, two doctors, as well as two ambulances. She said a participant had to be assisted by the committee because of the accidents they experience two weeks before and another participant failed to go to the test because of asthma. “Out of concerns, his parents had asked him not to come to the test,” she said.