Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has promised that state universities will be tuition-free by 2045, the Jakarta Post reports.
That's a tall order in a country where the average length of school is nine years, PISA scores are still below 400, and primary school students still make up the majority of the workforce.
So it's not surprising that universities in the world's most populous Muslim-majority country have been raising tuition in recent years.
What's more, state universities have been accused of taking advantage of poor students, according to the New York Times.
The country's vice president even blamed "public misperception" for the tuition hikes, saying they should be accompanied by improvements in education.
But education minister Nadiem Makarim isn't buying it.
"It is easy to forget that the average length of school enrollment in Indonesia is around nine years as of 2022; that our students' Program for International School Assessment (PISA) scores haven't passed the 400-point threshold and that primary school-educated students still dominate the workforce," the Post quotes Makarim as saying in a blog post this week.
"But not everyone can afford to be a patron like Prabowo, known for paying for people' Read the Entire Article
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