President Jokowi Requests LPDP Programs be Focused, Precise & Directed

President Jokowi leads a Limited Meeting on Optimizing the LPDP Management at the Presidential Office, Jakarta (7/2). (Photo: PR/Rahmat)

President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo said that Indonesia is predicted to enjoy a demographic bonus between 2020 and 2030, in which the number of productive age is very large. This means that within a period of three to thirteen years ahead, the President added, Indonesia would have a lot of human resources who are at the peak of their productive age. “In order to welcome the demographic bonus, the Government will work more focused not only on the efforts to bring equitable access to basic and secondary education for all Indonesian people, especially among the underprivileged, but also on the efforts to open up opportunities to enter higher education through optimizing the Indonesian Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP) Scholarship,” the President said in a Limited Meeting on Optimizing the LPDP Management, at the Presidential Office, (7/2) afternoon.

The data shows that the proportion of human resources with higher education qualifications in Indonesia is only 7.2 percent of the work force, compared to Malaysia’s 20.3 percent or the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries’ 40.3 percent.

In addition, the number of engineers per one million population of Indonesia is 2,671, lower than Malaysia which is 3,333, Vietnam and South Korea which is 9,037 and 25,039 respectively. “To that end, I would like to emphasize that investment in human resources, including through the provision of scholarships for higher education and research funding is crucial for our country to move forward in the future,” the President said.

To date, the President further added, the LPDP has managed most of the fund allocation for education from the State Budget (APBN) with endowment management mechanism, which is then distributed in the form of granting scholarships for master (S2) or doctoral degree (S3).

LPDP itself has distributed scholarships to 16,295 awardees, consisting of 8,406 awardees to study at universities in Indonesia and 7,889 awardees to study abroad. “But, I remind you that investment in human resources development should be focused, meet the target, and be directed,” the President concluded while hoping that the LPDP programs, be it scholarship programs, research funding or rehabilitation services for education infrastructure can be optimized further.

The Limited Meeting was attended by Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs Wiranto, Coordinating Minister for the Economy Darmin Nasution, Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture Puan Maharani, Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Luhut B. Pandjaitan, Minister of State Secretary Pratikno, Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung, Minister of Education and Culture Muhadjir Effendi, Minister of Research and Technology and Higher Education M. Nasir, Minister of Religious Affairs Lukman Hakim Saifuddin, Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani, Presidential Chief of Staff Teten Masduki, Minister of Tourism Arif Yahya, Minister of Transportation Budi Karya Sumadi, Minister of Health Nila F. Moeloek, and Minister of Youth and Sports Imam Nahrawi (DNA/FID/RAH/EN) (MUR/YM/Naster).