With Indonesia’s 2024 General Election drawing near, the General Election Commission (KPU) has recently announced more details to the 2024 General Election timeline. Campaigning will take place between  28th November 2023 to 10th February 2024, leading up to Election day on 14th February 2024. The President and Vice President will be sworn in on 20th October 2024.

(Source: Indonesia General Election Commission https://infopemilu.kpu.go.id/Pemilu/Peserta_pemilu).

What does it mean for the UK?

In his second term in office, the administration under President Jokowi’s committed to:

• allocating 20% of the National Budget (APBN) for education spending every year
• introducing policies to encourage international HEIs to have a greater presence in Indonesia through TNE programmes (mainly dual degree) and branch campuses (e.g. Monash Jakarta campus)
• streamlining research and innovation under one agency, BRIN (National Research and Innovation)
• sustaining investment in scholarship for overseas studies at UG, Masters and PhD levels mainly through LPDP (Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education) and also in-cooperation with provincial governments (PhD) and MoE (UG).

President Jokowi, however, has already been elected for two terms and cannot run for a third re-election. Therefore, Indonesia will have a new President and administration next year. It remains to be seen whether the new President will continue with President Jokowi’s key legacies, including his commitment to human capital development. Based on our conversations with various people in government, we are confident that LPDP will continue to provide scholarships for Indonesian students to study overseas after 2024 notwithstanding the change in government.

As it is usually difficult to arrange for meetings with key officials at MoE or other government departments during the campaign period, we recommend that visits from UK HEIs to Indonesia next year be scheduled after 14th February 2024.