Indonesian Government to Allocate IDR 250 Billion to Increas the Quality of Islamic Boarding School

Jakarta, MINA – The Indonesian government will allocate a budget of IDR 250 billion to improve the quality of Islamic boarding schools’ human resources (HR) in 2023.

This budget is prepared through the Islamic Boarding School Endowment Fund scheme which is sourced from the Education Endowment Fund.

This budget allocation was discussed jointly in a coordination meeting on the acceleration of the use of Islamic Boarding School Endowment Funds between the Ministry of Religion and the Ministry of Finance’s LPDP.

The meeting took place on the 2nd floor of the Ministry of Religion building, Jakarta on Tuesday.

Present were Secretary General of the Ministry of Religion Nizar Ali, Director General of Islamic Education M Ali Ramdhani, Director of Diniyah Education and Islamic Boarding Schools Waryono Abdul Ghafur, and the LPDP represented by the Director of LPDP Scholarships and the Director of Finance and General Affairs of the LPDP. Join online, representatives from the Directorate General of Budget of the Ministry of Finance.

Secretary General of the Ministry of Religion Nizar Ali appreciated the accelerated steps taken by the LPDP and the Ministry of Religion team to realize the Endowment Fund for Islamic Boarding Schools. Moreover, there is already a regulation that becomes the legal umbrella, and its existence has also been awaited by Islamic boarding schools.

“On the one hand, the Islamic Boarding School Endowment Fund is a mandate from Law Number 18 of 2019 concerning Islamic Boarding Schools and Presidential Regulation Number 82 of 2021 concerning Funding for Islamic Boarding Schools. On the other hand, the pesantren community has also been waiting for the Islamic boarding school endowment fund to be realized,” said Nizar Ali.

The Director General of Islamic Education Muhammad Ali Ramdhani explained the scheme for using the 2023 Islamic Boarding School Endowment Fund. This budget will be fully allocated to finance degree or non-degree scholarships, for bachelor, master and doctoral levels, both at home and abroad, for pesantren circles.

“Because the Endowment Fund for Islamic Boarding Schools comes from the Endowment Fund for Education, the allocation is only for the function of education, not for anything else, such as da’wah or community empowerment, as functions carried out by pesantren so far. Even for implementation or management support it is not allowed, because the rules are like that,” said Ramdhani.

LPDP Scholarship Director Dwi Sularso welcomed and supported the acceleration of the use of the Islamic Boarding School Endowment Fund.

“The Ministry of Religion certainly understands more about the needs of Islamic boarding schools. Matters that lead to the need to prepare a superior and reliable generation of Indonesians who have a national commitment, of course we will fully support them, including from the pesantren community,” said Dwi Sularso.

As a follow-up, the Ministry of Religion and LPDP teams will discuss technical steps, especially by completing the necessary documents, so that this special scholarship for Islamic boarding schools can be opened immediately in 2023. (T/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)