Good News For Indonesian Children, Sri Mulyani Plans To Increase Education Budget By IDR 43 Trillion

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Ministry of Finance)

JAKARTA - The government through the Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani plans to increase the education budget by IDR 43 trillion this year. The decision was made in line with the projected state revenue for 2022 which is estimated to exceed the target with a surplus of IDR 420 trillion.

"Because our constitution mandates that if state spending increases by 20 percent (as a propagation of rising income), the education budget must also increase," she said during a working meeting with the House of Representatives' (DPR) Budget Agency (Banggar), some time ago.

For information, the constitution mandates the government to provide an education budget of 20 percent of the total annual state budget expenditure in order to encourage the improvement of the quality of human resources (HR).

Meanwhile, in the 2022 State Budget (APBN) Law it is known that the allocation of education funds is IDR 542.8 trillion. This figure is mostly distributed to local governments in the form of Transfers to Regions and Village Funds (TKDD).

This distribution process takes into account that the majority of teachers and educational activities are managed by local agencies.

Meanwhile, only a small part of the education budget is held by the center, especially the Ministry of Religion, considering that the staffing status of religious teachers is under this agency.

“This increase refers to the ICP (Indonesian Crude Price) price of 100 US dollars from the previous ICP of 63 US dollars. So, there is a projection that state revenues will increase by 420 trillion," said Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani.