Questions remain over how presumptive president-elect Prabowo Subianto is planning to fund his flagship free school lunch program after a senior minister’s proposal to dip into school aid funds was met with widespread opposition from teachers.

Prabowo's free school meal program has been at the center of public scrutiny after preliminary vote tallies indicated that the Gerindra Party chairman had a comfortable lead over his opponents in the February presidential race.

The program targets more than 82 million students from preschool to senior high school and is expected to cost between Rp 100 trillion (US$6.4 billion) and Rp 120 trillion in its initial year. Once the program reaches full scale in 2029, the scheme will cost an estimated Rp 460 trillion a year, equivalent to 12 percent of this year’s state budget and approximately 2 percent of the country’s GDP.

Coordinating Economic Minister Airlangga Hartarto of the Golkar Party, which supported the Prabowo-Gibran Rakabuming Raka ticket, recently touted the idea of using school operational assistance (BOS) funds to partially fund the free meal program.

The suggestion was met with opposition from teachers’ associations, which said the BOS funds were barely enough to support day-to-day operational costs and improve teachers’ welfare.

Last year, the government allocated Rp 53.3 trillion for BOS funds for primary and secondary schools, with each school receiving between Rp 900,000 and Rp 1.5 million per student, depending on the level of education it provided. This year’s BOS funds have been cut by 2.3 percent to Rp 52.08 trillion.

Read also: Teachers’ groups oppose using operational assistance fund to provide free lunches

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