THE best student fainted before the announcement. After regaining consciousness, Nur Layla started wailing. The final-year Purusatama high school student in Semarang was unprepared to accept the reality of her failure in her National Test on Monday last week. She only scored 4 for her mathematics, below the required minimum pass-mark of 4.26. Though her marks for English and Indonesian were above 8, she could not pass.

Iskandar, 18, has a differe