President Jokowi Hands 2,844 KIP to Students From Greater Jakarta

President Jokowi symbolically hands the Smart Indonesia Card (KIP) to 12 orphaned students from Greater Jakarta at the 2017 National Meeting on Culture and Education held at JIExpo, Kemayoran, Jakarta, Thursday (26/1 (Photo by: Public Relations Division/Oji)

During the opening of the 2017 National Meeting on Culture and Education held on Thursday at Jakarta International Expo (JIExpo), Kemayoran, Jakarta, as many as 2,844 of orphaned students s from 309 schools in Jakarta and the neighboring towns of Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi received Smart Indonesia Card (KIP) from President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo.

At least 909 elementary school students, 992 junior high school students, 223 senior high school students, 628 vocational school students, 2 students from schools for disabled children (SLB), and 90 students from the Kejar Paket program (school for dropouts).

Twelve students symbolically received the Card, consisting of two primary school students, two junior high school students, two senior high school students, two vocational school students, two students from Community Learning Centers (PKBM), and two SLB students.

Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture Puan Maharani in her remarks said the Smart Indonesia Card program is the manifestation of the President’s directives to provide equal, justice, and quality education in 2017. Those orphaned students, Puan said, are parts of the targeted recipients of the program in 2017.

She added that the total of 896,781 orphaned students have been registered and in 2016, as many as 158,933 students received the Card. “We ensure that 736,848 children who have not received the Card will get benefit of this program in 2017,” Puan said.

Commenting on the Meeting, Puan said three main issues discussed during the meeting were efforts to boost equality in education services, improvement of quality, relevance, and competitiveness and efforts to strengthen management of education and culture.

Discussion on the efforts to promote equality in education services, Puan added, includes optimizing the implementation of the Smart Indonesia Card program and the optimizing of the development of education and culture from rural areas.

“Discussion on the efforts to improve quality, relevance, and competitiveness encompass the implementation of the 2013 curriculum, the strengthening of character education, and the strengthening of competitiveness through vocational and skill education, improvement of the quality of teachers and educators, as well as through strengthening assessment system,” Puan said.

Puan further said that the meeting also discussed the strengthening of education management that includes synergy between the Central Government and regional governments in the implementation of Law Number 23 of 2014, especially on the issues of personnel transfer, equipment, financing and documents from the Central to the regional governments, as well as the strengthening of institutions and working units of education and culture.

For the record, the meeting, which is held for three days from 25 – 27 January 2017, was attended by 1.045 participants from Ministry of Education and Culture, Head of Education and Culture Agencies at provincial and city/regency levels from all over Indonesia, representatives of Teacher Organizations, Culture Technical Units, Film Censorship Institutes, Provincial Culture Council, international institutions partners that support education and culture programs, as well as other stakeholders in education and culture sector.

Also attending the event were Minister of Education and Culture Muhadjir Effendy, Minister of Women Empowerment and Child Protection Yohanna Yembise, Minister of Foreign Affaris Retno Marsudi, Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung, and Acting Jakarta Governor Sumarsono. (UN/ES)  (EP/YM/Naster)