One Year Prabowo Subianto's Government: The Education Sector Is Still Tenuous

JAKARTA One year the government of President Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka has led Indonesia. Over the past year, the performance of the Prabowo government has been highlighted, one of which is from the education sector.

During one year of leadership, a number of Prabowo policies have been in the spotlight. From the education sector, there is the Free Nutrition Food (MBG) program which continues to generate controversy, but the head of state insists on maintaining the flagship program.

Not only that, education policies are also considered to be increasingly discriminatory and far from inclusive and fair principles. The National Coordinator of the Ubaid Matraji Indonesian Education Monitoring Network emphasized that education is a constitutional right, not a political tool.

Thus, the Prabowo-Gibran government must immediately return the direction of national education to the constitutional line: fair, inclusive, and free education.

"If this direction is not corrected immediately, history will note that this government fails to maintain the most basic rights of the nation's children: the right to education without discrimination and justice for all, no one left behind," said Ubaid Matraji.

During the 2024 Presidential Election (Pilpres) campaign, Prabowo promised a series of programs in the field of education. Some of them are scholarships for farmers' children, fishermen, teachers, and laborers for undergraduate studies to doctoral degrees, building superior schools, raising salaries for ASN teachers and doses, and finally, free nutritious eating programs (MBG).

President Prabowo reiterated that education is a priority in his government, with the largest APBN allocation in history. He said this while attending the Peak of the National Teacher's Day Commemoration at the Jakarta International Velodrome, Jakarta, Thursday (9/9/2025).

"We put education number one in our APBN. And I think the first time in Indonesia's history the allocation of education in the 2025 State Budget is the highest in the history of the Republic of Indonesia," said President Prabowo.

However, according to some observers, Prabowo's promises during the campaign were not realized during his reign, at least after one year.

MBG, which is Prabowo-Gibran's flagship program, is among the most highlighted due to the high controversy in this movement. Starting from the shrinking MBG budget, from IDR 15,000 per serving to IDR 10,000 per serving, to cases of food poisoning that are thought to come from MBG.

According to JPPI records, the total number of victims of poisoning due to MBG as of October 19, 2025 reached 13,168 children. The insistence that this program be evaluated thoroughly, or even stopped, was responded to by Prabowo with the affirmation that the program would continue. He claimed that the victim of poisoning was only 0.0007 percent. This claim was submitted by sambal calling the poisoning case a "still within scientific limits".

Ubaid assessed that this claim was not proof of success, but a sign of danger: the government is normalizing the inflated MBG, as well as ignoring the safety of children's lives.

The president seemed to forget that behind that number there were thousands of children whose poisoning and safety were threatened. In fact, the number of victims of poisoning does not reflect reality at all, "said Ubaid.

In addition, Ubaid also highlighted the education budget, which only has 14 percent of the total 2026 State Budget remaining. In fact, the constitution strictly mandates a minimum of 20 percent.

The reduction in the education budget for MBG has been carried out in 2025. But unfortunately, even though the absorption was poor, instead of being evaluated and deducted, the government actually increased the allocation of MBG to double in the 2026 State Budget, whose total was 335 trillion. This shows that the MBG policy is not based on need and effectiveness, but is based on imaging political interests.

This is not just a mismanagement, but an alleged violation of the constitution. The government has cut children's education rights to finance populist political projects in the name of nutrition. In 2025 alone, many MBG budgets are not absorbed, but 2026 has been increased more than three times. This is clearly a policy that does not side with children and weakens the education sector," said Ubaid.

In addition to the MBG program, the Prabowo government is also considered to ignore the decision of the Constitutional Court (MK) which caused millions of children to not go to school. The decision in question is the matter of the Constitutional Court's order that the government is obliged to provide basic education free of charge, both in public and private schools. However, currently there are still 4.1 million children who do not go to school, and the majority are caused by economic factors.

This neglect attitude, said Ubaid, shows that the government is more busy building imaging than carrying out the constitutional mandate to ensure basic rights to education.

More than four million Indonesian children today are not in school because the state failed to fulfill its obligations. The government may talk about free meals, but if the child does not go to school, that means the state is feeding ignorance," said Ubaid.

Another thing that has been in the spotlight after one year of Prabowo's leadership is that education policies are increasingly discriminatory and far from inclusive and fair principles.

The government has actually created a separate education model based on social class, namely the People's School for the poor and Garuda School for the leading group. These two programs actually create new segregation in national education.

According to JPP calculations, People's School is not a solution for children dropping out of school due to economic factors. The reason is, this program is only able to accommodate about 0.3 percent of children dropping out of school.

"This is not a solution, but a symbol of state failure in ensuring access to education for all," he said.

This policy seems to be in favor of the small people, but actually stigmatizes poverty. People's schools are just cosmetics to cover the country's inability to provide equal access for all. Meanwhile, Garuda School will become a new ivory tower for children with privileges," continued Ubaid.

Ubaid emphasized that education is a constitutional right, not a political tool so that the Prabowo 'Gibran government must immediately return the direction of national education to the constitutional line, namely fair, inclusive, and free education.

"If this direction is not corrected immediately, history will note that this government fails to maintain the most basic rights of the nation's children: the right to education without discrimination and justice for all, no one left behind," concluded Ubaid Matraji.