Up to 50,000 students across Indonesia will be given academic scholarships by the Transportation Ministry through the Transportation Sector Human Resources Development Agency (BPSDM).

 “The ministry chose BPSDM [to manage the scholarships] and I assigned them to establish a vocational school. This year we will fund 50,000 students," Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi told Antara news agency on Wednesday.

Budi explained that President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo had mandated the expansion of vocational education as there were still many middle-to-lower-class citizens who are only junior high school graduates. Specifically, around 30 percent of the workforce only have a junior high school certificate.

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“Therefore, every department has been tasked with funding their education through vocational schools,” he added. 

The scholarship program kicked off two weeks ago in Meulaboh, Semarang, Central Java, in cooperation with a number of educational institutions, such as Gadjah Mada University and Diponegoro University.

Individual scholarships are worth between Rp 5 million (US$374) and Rp 6 million, with the total value of all scholarships in the program reaching Rp 300 billion. (mra/kes)