Sekitar 16.616 dari 3.667.241 siswa SMP peserta Ujian Nasional (UN) tidak lulus. Provinsi yang ketidaklulusannya paling banyak adalah Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT) dan terkecil di DKI.

"Ini kalau dilihat dari ketidaklulusannya, NTT ada 1.992 siswa yang tidak lulus, Aceh 1.440 siswa dan paling kecil itu DKI, cuma 1 siswa," kata Menteri Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan M Nuh dalam jumpa pers di kantornya, Jalan Jenderal Sudirman, Senayan, Jakarta, Jumat (31/5/2013).

Bila dilihat dari distribusinya, ada sekolah yang tidak lulus 100% sebanyak 10 sekolah. Sedangkan yang lulus 100% ada 44.915 sekolah.

"Nah saya mengimbau agar adik-adik yang belum lulus supaya tidak stres, karena masih ada kejar paket B. Juga jangan hura-hura berlebihan bagi yang lulus," pesan mantan Rektor Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) ini.

Dalam merayakan kelulusan, Nuh menilai siswa SMA lebih baik dari tahun lalu. "Ada yang mengekspresikan kelulusan dengan membagi-bagikan makanan ke orang kecil. Saya harap SMP juga begitu," tuturnya.

Nuh berjanji bagi siswa berprestasi dalam UN akan dimintakan piagam yang diteken Presiden, Kemendikbud, hingga beasiswa.

"Sudah saya kirim surat ke presiden. Tapi kalau tidak bisa ya minimal piagam dari kementerianlah.
Yang kedua kans untuk ke sekolah yang lebih bagus lebih besar. Yang ketiga nanti saya usulkan supaya nanti dapat beasiswa. Jadi ada tiga bentuk penghargaan bagi merekalah," tutur Nuh.

BEIJING (AP) — The head of Taiwan's Nationalists reaffirmed the party's support for eventual unification with the mainland when he met Monday with Chinese President Xi Jinping as part of continuing rapprochement between the former bitter enemies.

Nationalist Party Chairman Eric Chu, a likely presidential candidate next year, also affirmed Taiwan's desire to join the proposed Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank during the meeting in Beijing. China claims Taiwan as its own territory and doesn't want the island to join using a name that might imply it is an independent country.

Chu's comments during his meeting with Xi were carried live on Hong Kong-based broadcaster Phoenix Television.

The Nationalists were driven to Taiwan by Mao Zedong's Communists during the Chinese civil war in 1949, leading to decades of hostility between the sides. Chu, who took over as party leader in January, is the third Nationalist chairman to visit the mainland and the first since 2009.

Relations between the communist-ruled mainland and the self-governing democratic island of Taiwan began to warm in the 1990s, partly out of their common opposition to Taiwan's formal independence from China, a position advocated by the island's Democratic Progressive Party.

Despite increasingly close economic ties, the prospect of political unification has grown increasingly unpopular on Taiwan, especially with younger voters. Opposition to the Nationalists' pro-China policies was seen as a driver behind heavy local electoral defeats for the party last year that led to Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou resigning as party chairman.