Using Agent Based Modeling to Determine High School Student Selection System in Bandung, Indonesia

Utomo, Dhanan Sarwo Bandung Institute of Technology Putro, Utomo Sarjono Bandung Institute of Technology Novani, Santi Bandung Institute of Technology Siallagan, Manahan Bandung Institute of Technology Dhanan Sarwo Utomo, Sch. of Business & Management, Bandung Institute of Technology, Jalan Ganesha 10, Bandung, Indonesia, krigjsman@gmail.com ABSTRACT According to Indonesian Republic Law No.32 2004, each local government has an obligation to design a high school student selection system that is suitable to be implemented in their region. Unfortunately, student selection systems that are currently implemented still cannot produce the expected result. We construct an agent-based model that mimic the student selection process in Bandung. By conducting experiments using this model, the limitations of current student selection system are identified and modification is suggested. By observing agents success rate in this model, we also able to identify the best strategy for agent in order to be qualified in the school of their choice under different kind of system. INTRODUCTION As the impact of the implementation of regional autonomy, each local government has an obligation to design and implement high school students selection and acceptance program (known as the PSB program). Currently, local governments in Indonesia are implementing their own student selection system. These systems vary in terms of technology used, the number of schools that can be selected by student candidates, and how schools are categorized or clustered. Although there are various systems, a number of education experts and practitioners in Indonesia agreed that a good student selection (PSB) system should be able to distribute the number of incoming students evenly to all schools that participate in the PSB program. However, the systems that are applied at this time can not guarantee that the incoming students are distributed evenly. This failure has caused a number of school students suffering from student deficiency. Student deficiency will not only reduce schools income but also, create opportunity for corruption and nepotism practices. Every year, local governments seek to improve student selection system that they conducted based on the evaluation of systems performance in the previous year. This practice is a form of experiments that is conducted on real systems, which not only waste money, but also often considered to be detrimental for the parents and student candidates. Computer simulation can help in designing a better student selection system. Through computer simulation, experiments can be conducted with various systems and populations configurations. Impacts caused by the implementation of a system can be anticipated without causing any risk on the real system [1]. The objective of this study is to build an agent-based simulation that is able to mimic the high school student selection system in Bandung city. Through this simulation, the performance of the current student selection system is tested under various population conditions. Several system configurations are also tested and their performances are compared to the performance of the current system. System's ability to reduce student deficiency becomes the main parameter to determine whether the system is good or bad. SIMULATION MODEL There are four main assumptions used in building agent-based simulation for student selection system in Bandung. The first is that, the condition of applicants, the condition of schools, and the selection system should be appropriate for the case of Bandung. According to the PSB data in 2008, there are approximately 36,000 applicants and 26 schools that participate in the PSB program. The schools are clustered into five, based on their previous achievement (the most prestigious schools are placed in the first cluster). Each applicant may apply to two schools from different cluster. Each school then select N (the school capacity) applicants with the highest national examination score. The second, each applicant select the schools to which they will apply based on the schools aggregate benefit (utility). There are three criteria in calculating the aggregate benefit value. a) First is the distance from the applicants home to each school [5]. The distance

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travelled to school is calculated using Euclidean distance. The x and y position of schools and applicants homes is obtained by dividing the Bandung city into 6 x 4 grid. The position of each school is assigned based on the coordinate in which the school is really located. Applicants home x and y position are initiated by using Monte Carlo method. The probability that the applicants home is located at the point of x = i is calculated based on the total population in each district along the line of x = i divided by the total population in Bandung. The same procedure is applied in assigning the y position. Second is the applicants expectation about the school quality [3] that is determined by the schools previous achievement. The number of competitor that will be faced by the applicant. This number is represented by the number of applications that have been sent to the school and will vary during the simulation process.

FIGURE 1: The general simulation algorithm

The third assumption is that, the applicants national examination score will become a constraint in choosing the schools to which they will sent their application. In the case of Bandung, the schools have no exact minimum standard of applicants national examination score to be accepted. The minimum national examination score that was accepted in the given school (known as passing grade) usually become an anchor for the applicants. Therefore, the applicants may have different perception toward the passing grade. First, an applicant may act neutrally (apply to a school only if their score is higher than the passing grade of that school), second, an applicant may act pessimistically (make some adjustment to anticipate in case the minimum score needed to be qualified increase), third, an applicant may act optimistically (dare to make speculation and apply to the top school of their choice). The last assumption used in this simulation is that the applicants only have limited information about the schools attributes. They relied upon social network [2] that is modeled using Watts-Strogatz small world networks [6]. This kind of network is chosen because schools in Bandung have no certain catchment area. Therefore, the network an applicant may have is not limited to their neighborhood and the nearest neighbor model seems inappropriate. At the beginning of the simulation, an applicant will gather information from random school. In every iteration, each applicant will transmit school information they have to a random friend in their social network.

SIMULATION RESULT The simulation is conducted using Spot Oriented Agent Role Simulator (SOARS) that developed by Prof. Hiroshi Deguchi at Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan. In the simulation process three experiments are conducted. The aim of the first experiment is to test the performance of the current policy (five clusters with two choices) under various population variations. The second and third experiment aimed to test the performance of the selection policy using different number of cluster. In each experiment, four kinds of scenarios are carried out. The first scenario involve only neutral agents, the second involve only pessimistic agents, the third involve only optimistic agents and in the last scenario all types of agents are involved with equal proportion. The results of our early simulation are shown in the following figures.

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REFERENCES [1]. Axelrod, R. Advancing the Art of Simulation in the Social Sciences, Japanese Journal for Management Information System, Special Issue on Agent-Based Modeling, 2003, 12 (3). [2]. Dougherty, J., Harrelson, J., Maloney, L., Murphy, D., Smith, R., Snow, M., et al. School Choice in Suburbia: Public School Testing and Private Real Estate Markets. Mapping School Choice panel, Division L American Educational Research Association, 2007. [3]. Henrickson, L. A. A Feasibility of the Use of Computational Modelling in Education Research: An Agent Based Model of the college choice/college access problem in higher education. Phd Thesis, University of California, Los Angles, 2003 [4]. Putro, Utomo Sarjono, Siallagan, M., Noviani, Santi. Agent-based Simulation of Negotiation Process Using Drama Theory. Proceeding The 51st Annual Meeting of International Society for the System Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, 2007. [5]. Tatar, E., & Oktay, M. Search, Choice and Persistence for Higher Education: A Case Study In Turkey. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 2006, 2 (2). [6]. Watts, D. J., & Strogatz, S. H. Collective dynamics of small-world networks. Nature, 1998, 393, 440-442.

C)
FIGURE 2: A) The number of student deficiency under current policy; B) the number of student deficiency if the cluster is reduced into three clusters; C) the number of student deficiency if the cluster is increased into six clusters

In the first experiment observed that in the current high school student selection system, the student deficiency is always occurring in every scenario. The number of student deficiency increases drastically in the second scenario, when all agents are pessimistic. In the second experiment, the number of cluster is reduced into three clusters. This system performs better in eliminating the number of student deficiency in the second and fourth scenario. But, this system performs worse than the current high school student selection system in the first and third scenario. In the third experiment, the number of cluster is increased into six clusters. This system performs better in minimizing student deficiency in all scenarios. The student deficiency only occurred in the third scenario, with less number compare to the two previous systems. In order to decide the best agents strategy, we calculate the proportion of each type of agent to the total number agent who qualified in all experiment. From all simulation result the number of neutral agent who qualified is 41.67%, pessimistic agent is 32.92% and optimistic agent is 25.42%. CONCLUSION From the simulation result it can be concluded that the current student selection is very sensitive to the variation of population proportion. The current student selection system is vulnerable in resulting high number of student deficiency especially, when the number of pessimistic agents is high. In order to improve student selection system in Bandung, we suggest increasing the number of cluster that is used from five clusters to six clusters. This adjustment will minimize the number of student deficiency that occurs in the selection process. By comparing the proportion of each type of agent to the total number of qualified agents the best agents strategy can be obtained. From the simulation result, it can be observed that agents with neutral type perform better than pessimistic and optimistic agents. Neutral agent is tending to be realistic. They do not make any speculation but also will not avoid competition.

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