Urged By NU-Muhammadiyah, Minister Nadiem Cancels Conditions For BOS Recipient Schools With 60 Students

Mendikbudristek Nadiem Makarim (Photo: Youtube Kemendikbud RI/VOI)

JAKARTA - The Minister of Education, Culture, Research and Technology (Mendikbudristek) Nadiem Anwar Makarim ensured that the requirement for schools receiving School Operational Assistance (BOS) to have a minimum of 60 students does not apply in 2022.

"The Ministry of Education and Technology has decided not to enforce this (requirement, ed.) in 2022," Nadiem said during a Working Meeting with Commission X DPR in Jakarta, Antara, Wednesday, September 8.

Minister Nadiem appreciated the input from Commission X and the community regarding various concerns and concerns regarding the implementation of the requirements for BOS recipient schools. He explained that the program has existed since 2019, and there are three years for policy socialization.

"So, this program has started from 2019, but has not been carried out in 2021 because it has not entered three years. There is a time limit," he said.

Nadiem explained that the current pandemic situation was considered quite extreme. He said that to deal with this pandemic, flexibility and tolerance were needed for schools that were still difficult to make the transition to become schools with a larger minimum scale.

The use of regular BOS not only accommodates operations in formal schools, but is also allocated for operations for children with special needs (ABK). This policy gives principals flexibility to determine what can be improved with BOS funds.

Chairman of the House of Representatives Commission X, Syaiful Huda, appreciated Minister Nadiem's decision not to enforce the policy that was set three years ago.

“We ask that it is not used as a standard regarding 60 students. I am sure that the Ministry of Education and Culture can formulate other policy formulas that can be used as tools to evaluate schools so that schools can be even better, without using the BOS instrument, please look for other instruments other than BOS that are more effective," he said.

To note, the educational alliance consisting of Muhammadiyah, Nahdlatul Ulama, Catholic Educational Institutions, Tamansiswa, and PGRI considers Permendikbud 6/2021 to be discriminatory and does not fulfill a sense of social justice.

The article in the Permendikbud that is at issue is that school arrangements that can receive BOS funds must have a number of students of at least 60 students for the last 3 years.

"The Alliance of Education Providers has stated that it rejects Permendikbud Number 6 of 2021 concerning Technical Guidelines for Regular BOS Management, especially Article 3 paragraph (2) letter d concerning Schools Recipient of Regular BOS Funds," wrote the Attitude Statement signed by six inter-organizational institutions.