"President Prabowo Subianto understands that education is key to breaking the cycle of poverty," she said on Sunday.
She emphasized that many individuals from poor and extremely poor families still lack access to quality education.
Irawati noted that poverty remains a major challenge to Indonesia’s Golden Indonesia 2045 vision due to its impact on human resource development.
To address this, Sekolah Rakyat aims to provide students with access to quality education, vocational training, healthcare, and adequate nutrition.
"All student needs will be fully covered by the state under the Sekolah Rakyat program," she said.
The program is also designed to equip students with life skills, enabling them to work or start their own businesses and ultimately improve the well-being of their families and communities.
President Prabowo has stressed the importance of implementing the Sekolah Rakyat program accurately and effectively to ensure it achieves its intended goals.
According to Statistics Indonesia, 24.1 million people — 8.6 percent of the population — were living in poverty as of September 2024, with 3.2 million categorized as extremely poor.
In the same year, the gross enrollment rate at the senior high and vocational school levels was 74.5 percent among households with the lowest expenditures, compared to 97.4 percent among those with the highest.
Additionally, over 730,000 junior high school graduates did not continue their education, with nearly 76 percent of families citing economic hardship as the main reason.
Data from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology (2022) also showed dropout rates of 1.1 percent at the junior high level and 1.2 percent at the senior high level.
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Translator: Lintang Budiyanti, Raka Adji
Editor: Anton Santoso
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