Jakarta (ANTARA) - Indonesia’s Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Minister Rini Widyantini said on Saturday her ministry is preparing an integrated strategy to raise the competency of teachers at government-run tuition-free schools under the Sekolah Rakyat (People’s School) program.
“Once these teachers are actively teaching in the schools, they must also be given opportunities to strengthen their skills,” Widyantini said in a statement issued by the Ministry of Social Affairs.
She said the ministry will work with the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education and the National Institute of Public Administration (LAN) to improve competencies for both civil servant and contract-based teachers.
“Competency is vital for teachers to be able to adapt and continue to innovate and collaborate,” she added.
The Sekolah Rakyat program currently operates 100 schools nationwide. The Ministry of Social Affairs aims to expand that to 165 schools in the 2025–2026 academic year, accommodating nearly 15,900 students and supported by about 2,400 teachers.
To meet staffing needs, the government is redistributing civil servant teachers and those recruited on contract in 2024, Widyantini said.
She added her ministry is preparing both teacher development and institutional support for the program.
The Sekolah Rakyat initiative is part of President Prabowo Subianto’s poverty-alleviation drive, mandated under Presidential Instruction No. 8/2025, which seeks to break the cycle of poverty and eliminate extreme poverty.
Targeted at children from poor and extremely poor families, the program is coordinated by the Ministry of Social Affairs and uses the National Socioeconomic Single Data (DTSEN) to identify eligible beneficiaries.
