According to Nizam, the awareness to pay taxes is still low in Indonesia.
This is despite the fact that nations with quality education, such as Scandinavian countries, have a tax rate of 65 percent and 75 percent for the rich that everyone is willing to pay, he pointed out.
"If this already happens, then social service becomes the state's full responsibility," he stated.
Indonesia cannot as yet provide universal access until higher education, and it can only offer access up to the level of basic education or universal goods since it is the main foundation for a country, he remarked.
"If the citizens are illiterate, then the country will collapse. Hence, the right to basic education has to be met. However, in Indonesia, this public awareness to invest in education is still low," he emphasized.
Meanwhile, developed countries are able to finance their citizens up to the level of higher education, as they are aware that engineers would more beneficial to society than high school graduates, he stated.
Indonesians currently still pay 12-13 percent tax, while the average should be 15 percent. Thus, the awareness to pay taxes for investment in education is necessary.
"Our higher education budget is only enough to finance one university in Singapore, while in America, for instance, the budget in one university can already finance the entire existing universities," he highlighted.
He also outlined that the workforce profile in Indonesia is still imbalanced.
Out of the 146 million workers, only 11 percent are university graduates. Meanwhile, the rest of the 89 percent are primary school to high school graduates, he explained.
He also deemed it important to improve the quality of higher education in Indonesia to prevent frequent unemployment among university graduates.
To improve the quality of higher education, the ministry also provided assistance to underprivileged families to facilitate access to higher education.
"The data as per today is that we have one million university students, and more than 10 percent of them had already received the College Smart Indonesia Card (KIP)," he stated.
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Translator: Lintang B P, Fadhli Ruhman
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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