LPDP (Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education) provides scholarships for Master’s and PhD programmes. The scholarship aims to support the supply of educated and qualified Indonesian employees who also possess a leadership quality and a strong vision as future leaders of Indonesia. The applicants targeted for the programme are Indonesian citizens with excellent academic achievements and strong leadership quality who wish to continue pursuing studies in Master’s and PhD programmes in Indonesia or overseas. LPDP sets a list of top 200 Universities from which the applicants can apply. This list has undergone a few changes over these couple of years. The UK has been the number one most popular study destination chosen by the LPDP scholarships awardees.

This year, LPDP’s decision to limit the application intake, from four times a year to one time a year with the result announcement in October has affected many scholarships awardees that chose the UK as their destination. This circumstance has made many awardees defer their offer or amend their study destination.

Following the internal changes in the LPDP, at the moment the LPDP is undergoing a restructuring process. Earlier this year the President held a private meeting with the Vice President and the Mminister to discuss the plan to optimise the LPDP. Two main points from the meeting are to establish a new LPDP committee and to strengthen the LPDP by legal protection in the form of Presidential Regulation. Several ministers are included on the new LPDP committee who are drafting a Presidential Regulation for strengthening the LPDP. Five ministries will coordinate the master plan for the LPDP ((Finance ministry, National Development Planning Mministry, Research, Technology and Higher Education Mministry, Education and Culture Mministry and Religious Affairs Mministry). At the moment the LPDP is also expecting the announcement of its new President Director soon.

The government also plans to add financial asset as one of the resources to fund the LPDP. Currently the LPDP is managing the national education development funds. The funding for scholarships, research or education facility restoration is obtained from the fund management. By doing financial asset diversification, the LPDP tried to divert the strategy from short term investment to medium term investment. The LPDP expects to send more scholarships awardees by diversifying its financial asset. Up until August 2017, the LPDP has given scholarships, both locally and overseas to 16,887 awardees which 47% of the awardees are receiving scholarships to study overseas. 11,151 awardees are currently undergoing their education, 2,729 awardees have graduated and the rest are still waiting to depart.

Meanwhile the LPDP has been receiving some unwelcome press as a number of scholarship applicants have described their treatment at the LPDP interview assessment stage. The interviewers have been criticised for asking irrelevant questions, such as about personal issues, gender, race and religion.

Commentary by Meinanda Chudahman:

With the changing environment and uncertain situation, universities are expected to manage their expectations and to be patient when focusing on scholarships awardees in Indonesia. New regulations might be announced once the Presidential Rregulation has been finalised and the new President Director has been announced.

However it is said that in the future the use of LPDP the budget will be expanded to medical staff, cultural experts and vocational training for school teachers. Students from Eastern Indonesia (Papua, NTT, and Maluku) will still be one of the LPDP main focuses and they will be given more support for the preparation and pre-departure briefing

Sources:

British Council and British Embassy internal meetings with ministries
https://www.antaranews.com/berita/652710/pemerintah-rancang-perpres-untu...
https://www.cnnindonesia.com/ekonomi/20170925214350-78-244010/pemerintah...
https://jpp.go.id/teknologi/pendidikan/307074-godok-rancangan-perpres-sa...
https://www.kemenkopmk.go.id/artikel/kemenko-pmk-bahas-perpres-penguatan...
http://www.bbc.com/indonesia/indonesia-41882916
https://kumparan.com/utomo-priyambodo/pertanyaan-sensitif-dalam-wawancar...