Minister Of Home Affairs Asks Local Governments To Help Advanced Student Scholarships To PTN-BH

JAKARTA - Minister of Home Affairs (Mendagri) Muhammad Tito Karnavian encouraged local governments (Pemda) to distribute scholarships for students who want to continue their education to state universities with legal entities (PTN-BH).

Tito encouraged the local government to create a capacity building program for employees who can be educated by PTN-BH.

According to him, many local governments have given scholarships to students to continue their studies at PTN-BH.

"Because this scholarship is indeed one of the programs for almost all regional heads to provide scholarships, including scholarships for high school graduates, vocational schools, to enter PTN-BH," Tito said at the Gathering and Working Meeting of the PTN-BH 2025 Board of Trustees (MWA) forum in Semarang, Central Java, as reported by ANTARA, Saturday, May 10.

Not only that, the local government can also cooperate with PTN-BH in increasing employee capacity because local governments need employees who have certain capacities or expertise. In fact, several local governments are also known to have run the program.

"In the police, it is mandatory for investigators to have a law degree. Therefore, the police are very aggressive in building relations and cooperation with public and private universities," said the former National Police Chief.

The provision of scholarships, both to the public and civil servants (PNS), he said, is regulated in the Regulation of the Minister of Home Affairs (Permendagri) Number 77 of 2020 concerning Technical Guidelines for Regional Financial Management.

Scholarships for civil servants are included in the service expenditure budget, while public education scholarships are included in the budget for goods and services. The scholarships for education for the poor are included in the social assistance budget.

However, the Minister of Home Affairs reminded that in order to cooperate with the regional government, PTN-BH needs to improve its quality so that it is superior to other universities.

Tito said that the local government would only be willing to cooperate if PTN-BH was able to offer attractive programs at affordable costs.

"The law on the market applies, whose products are of higher quality, cheaper prices, they are used by local governments," he explained.

Previously, the Minister of Home Affairs explained five main roles for local governments in supporting the development of PTN-BH, namely: providing grant funds; assisting infrastructure development in and around the PTN-BH environment.

In addition, providing scholarships for high school/vocational school graduates to continue their education to universities; increase the capacity of local government officials through education in PTN-BH; and establish cooperation in the field of research and creative programs.