Indonesia TKA

Overview

Tes Kemampuan Akademik (TKA, Academic Ability Test) is Indonesia's current standardised measure of student academic achievement. It was introduced by Ministerial Regulation (Permendikdasmen) No. 9 of 2025, issued by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education (Kementerian Pendidikan Dasar dan Menengah, Kemendikdasmen) and administered through its education assessment centre, Pusmendik. TKA replaces the old Ujian Nasional (national exam) model, and the same regulation also revoked the 2023 equivalency-test rules for non-formal education. Its stated purpose is to produce standardised data on what students have learned, for use in academic selection and system-level evaluation, rather than to decide whether an individual student passes or fails.

Who can apply

TKA covers students in formal, non-formal and informal education pathways. Participation is compulsory for: Grade 6 students in SD/MI (primary school) or the equivalent Package A non-formal programme; Grade 9 students in SMP/MTs (junior secondary) or Package B; and Grade 12 students in SMA/MA (senior secondary) or final-year students in SMK/MAK (vocational secondary), or Package C. Registered pesantren (Islamic boarding school) students and home-schooled students listed in the ministry's own student database also take part.

Exam pattern

TKA is delivered entirely as a Computer-Based Test (CBT); there is no paper-based version.

For the SMA/MA and SMK/MAK level, the test is spread across two days: compulsory subjects on the first day and the student's two chosen elective subjects on the second. For the 2025 round, the compulsory papers (Indonesian, Mathematics, English) ran for 75 minutes each with 25–30 questions, while each elective paper had 25 questions in 60 minutes. Questions combine simple multiple choice with complex multiple-choice formats, including multiple-answer and categorised-answer items.

Marking and results

TKA is diagnostic, not a pass/fail gate: it does not determine whether a student graduates or is promoted to the next grade, which remains the school's own decision based on its internal assessment of the student. Instead, each participant's result is issued as a standardised score report used to check the consistency of school report-card grades, to give comparable academic data across the formal, non-formal and informal pathways, and to support academic-selection decisions for progressing to the next level of education. Because the use of TKA scores in specific university-admission pathways is still being finalised by the ministry each year, students should confirm the current year's rules with their school or the relevant admission body rather than assume a fixed role for TKA in those pathways.

Important dates

For the first implementation cycle: SMA/MA and SMK/MAK Grade 12 students sat TKA for the first time around November 2025, while SD/MI and SMP/MTs implementation began in March–April 2026, with results for that round announced on 26 May 2026.

For the 2026 SMA/MA and SMK/MAK cycle: registration ran from 27 July to 27 September 2026, the main test administration ran from 26 October to 8 November 2026 (compulsory subjects in the final days of October into early November, elective subjects in the first full week of November), make-up sessions ran from 16 to 29 November 2026, and results were announced on 23 December 2026.

How to apply

Students do not register themselves. Each school (satuan pendidikan) registers its eligible students through the ministry's official TKA portal within the announced registration window; students should check with their own school for the exact process and deadline that applies to them.

Preparation tips

• Study from your regular school curriculum for the compulsory subjects and for the two elective subjects you are assigned, since TKA questions are drawn from the national curriculum rather than a separate exam syllabus.

• Practise answering in the CBT question formats used by TKA — simple multiple choice as well as complex multiple-choice items with more than one correct answer — since these differ from older Ujian Nasional-style papers.

• Treat your TKA result as feedback on your learning rather than a pass/fail outcome, and use it to see which subjects need more work before later selection stages.