TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Teachers applaud court ruling on free basic education
In a landmark ruling on Tuesday, the Constitutional Court has decided that government subsidities should also apply to private schools as part of efforts to fulfill its obligation to provide free basic education to all students.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Elementary school students salute the national flag on Aug. 17, 2024, during a ceremony to mark the country’s 79th Independence Day in Mbeteng Sata, a tourist attraction at the foot of Mount Prau in Campurejo village, Temanggung, Central Java. (Antara/Anis Efizudin)
T
eachers’ associations have welcomed a recent Constitutional Court ruling that mandates government provision of free basic education at both public and private schools, calling for urgent budget reallocation to ensure its immediate implementation by the next academic year beginning in July.
The Indonesian Education Monitoring Network (JPPI) filed a petition for a judicial review of the 2003 Law on the National Education System (Sisdiknas) in December 2023, urging that its provision on “compulsory basic education at no charge” should extend beyond public schools to ensure educational equity.
At the verdict hearing on Tuesday, the court stated that Article 34, Paragraph 2 of the Sisdiknas Law, which stipulates that basic education to be free of charge, had been applied too narrowly to just public schools.
The law defines basic education as comprising elementary and junior high schools, including their equivalent levels at madrassas.
The court’s justices noted in their ruling that public schools had limited capacity, which often prompted families to enroll their children in private institutions that generally charged higher tuition. This undermined the state’s obligation to ensure its citizens’ universal access to free basic education, they said
“The state must implement a financing policy that [provides coverage to] students at both public and private schools as well as madrassas through educational assistance or subsidies, so there will not be any gap in access to basic education,” said Justice Enny Nurbaningsih.
Read also: Court orders govt to provide free basic education in all schools
