Indonesia National Science Olympiad


The OSN, previously KSN is a science competition for Indonesian students held by the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture. This competition consists of a few competitions for elementary school students, junior high school students, and senior high school students.
The competition puts students from the thirty-four provinces of Indonesia, and winners of the competition are further selected to represent Indonesia in their respective subjects' International Science Olympiad. In addition, Indonesian public universities are required to accept medal-winners of the competition into their undergraduate programmes.
KSN was initiated in 2002 when Indonesia first became host of the International Physics Olympiad. The first ever national-stage competition was held in Yogyakarta, and in 2003 it was held in Balikpapan with improved rules and procedures.
In 2020, as the new Minister of Education Nadiem Makarim takes office, a brand new governmental agency was created which was called ‘Pusat Prestasi Nasional’ to hold this olympiad. Due to Indonesia's 2032 Olympic bid, all competitions using ‘Olympiad’ in their names are changed into ‘Competition’. Therefore, this competition is called National Science Competition.

Subjects

The competition is divided into 3 levels:
  1. Elementary School
Mathematics, Natural sciences
  1. Junior High School
Mathematics, Natural sciences, Social sciences
  1. Senior High School
Mathematics, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Computer science, Earth science, Astronomy, Geography, Economics

Selection process

In general, the overall competition is divided into four stages:
  1. School stage
Schools may select representatives to the olympiad in any desired manner - no fixed rules apply to individual schools.
  1. Regency stage
Students selected to represent their schools are sent to a centralized location in their regency/city where they take a test with other students from the same area. The set of questions are composed by the central body i.e. the Ministry. No centrally-imposed quota for participant count exists for joining this stage, although most local organizers limit the number of participants from individual schools.
In several provinces, particularly ones in Java such as Jakarta and Central Java, there may be further pre-provincial stage selections.
  1. Province stage
Regardless of the pre-provincial stage selections, a single province are allowed to represent themselves by up to three times the number of province's regencies in terms of student count, with a minimum limit of a single student per regency. The aforementioned students sit in a single exam which is held simultaneously across the country.
Individual schools are limited to sending 3 students to this exam.
  1. National stage
A minimum of 1 student per province and generally less than 100 students nationally per subject come together and sit exams, generally one theoretical and one experimental, and winners are selected.
Individual awards include Absolute Winner, Best Theory and Best Experiment, along with gold, silver, and bronze medals.
In 2016, over 320,000 students participated in the Olimpiade Sains Kabupaten across Indonesia, with 1,579 eventually making it into the national phase. In comparison, 420 medals were given out in 2017.

Events

As of 2002, only three provinces have ever won the competition: DKI Jakarta, Central Java, East Java. Those three provinces are commonly seen in the competition as dominant participants, oftentimes sending the largest delegations of students.
YearLocationWinner
2002YogyakartaCentral Java
2003BalikpapanCentral Java
2004PekanbaruDKI Jakarta
2005JakartaDKI Jakarta
2006SemarangCentral Java
2007SurabayaCentral Java
2008MakassarCentral Java
2009JakartaDKI Jakarta
2010MedanDKI Jakarta
2011ManadoCentral Java
2012SD & SMA: Jakarta
SMP: Pontianak		Central Java
2013SD & SMA: Bandung
SMP: Batam		Central Java
2014SD: Denpasar
SMP: Padang
SMA: Mataram		DKI Jakarta
2015SD & SMA: Yogyakarta
SMP: Palu		Central Java
2016PalembangCentral Java
2017PekanbaruDKI Jakarta
2018PadangDKI Jakarta
2019SD & SMP: Yogyakarta
SMA: Manado		DKI Jakarta
2020OnlineEast Java
2021OnlineEast Java
2022OnlineEast Java
2023BogorDKI Jakarta
2024JakartaEast Java
2025MalangDKI Jakarta

In 2020, during the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, the National Achievement Center instructs that the competition is going to be held online.