Mancho, the son of a farmer, is now a manager at the Commonwealth Bank. Latif, whose parents worked as domestic helpers, recently defended his PhD at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Goesthi, whose father once sold food on the street, is now a senior engineer. Bangkit, the son of a school canteen worker, now serves as an expert in the Ministry of Social Affairs.
These are only a few of the success stories brought to light by Imam Santoso, a renowned professor of Metallurgical Engineering at the Bandung Institute of Technology. As a professor with a strong social media presence, he took it upon himself to be part of a movement that strives to revive the intellectual might that Indonesia once was. His core message: “Don’t let the cost of higher education discourage you, many scholarships await!”.
While these stories are inspiring, they remain the exception, not the norm. For most Indonesians, poverty remains a major barrier to education. When children are forced to work instead of study, when parents can’t afford to dream big for their kids, and when rural schools lack resources, the result is a continuous cycle of poverty that traps families in low-income lives.
For decades, the Indonesian people have endured a significant amount of wealth inequality, perpetuated by multiple ineffective administrations and external factors, like the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. With a population of 280 million scattered across multiple islands, ensuring equal provision of services to both urban and rural areas remains an ongoing struggle. This has resulted in urban cities receiving the bulk of attention, funding and growth. Meanwhile, children in rural Indonesia are often left behind, especially in one of the most vital public services: education.
Poverty inherently limits access to quality education. Limited education leads to fewer opportunities, leading to individuals acquiring low-paying jobs and experiencing continued economic hardship, perpetuating the cycle for the next generation, who continue to be denied a proper education. But education, when made accessible and equitable, has the power to break this loop. Education not only equips, but empowers the next generation. It brings power back to the people and grants them agency to think critically and alleviate themselves from generational poverty.
Indonesia consistently ranks among the lowest in the world on PISA scores, reflecting its struggling education system. This not only stems from a lack of proper resource allocation for government-funded public schools, but also the fact that for many Indonesian children, education simply is not a priority. It is not uncommon to find children missing out on a day of school in order to help their mother look after their stall at the market. Some even abandon school altogether, forced to take on the mantle of “breadwinner” when their parents are no longer capable of working, often selling miscellaneous food or products on roadsides at traffic intersections just to survive. Financial hardships push children into economic roles prematurely, robbing them of the time and opportunity needed to invest in their future through education.
Despite the struggle children of lower-income families encounter in regards to education, children in major metropolitan areas often have the advantage of better-funded public schools, and even international-curriculum schools. Teachers are often more qualified, better trained and well compensated, creating an environment conducive to student enrichment. Families who can afford more ‘prestigious’ schools also tend to be from the middle to upper class, as a result, they are often more likely to be able to provide their children with after-school supplemental tutoring, and permit their children to achieve a full-time focus on education. This stands in stark contrast to children from low-income families, especially in rural parts of Indonesia, where such opportunities and privileges are scarce.
In rural areas, the situation is dire. In these areas, opportunities remain scarce, and most children already have predetermined career paths in agriculture and manual labour. Many children simply cannot afford to dream big, as parents, fully aware of their financial limitations and inability to support their children in any ambitious career endeavours, discourage these aspirations they cannot support. For many, the best course of action they can take is to move to the city in search of better opportunities, though often only as far as becoming a domestic worker. This disparity in access to quality education between urban and rural areas reinforces the wealth gap, leaving children born into poverty in rural regions with little chance of breaking free, often through access to education.
Even with schools in place, how do we ensure the quality of teaching and education? The Ministry of Education, in the last 5-10 years, has restructured the national curriculum and revised school allocation policies of children. These changes seem promising and have given many people hope. But in practice, we still see a high prevalence of absent teachers, professional development seminars for teachers being held in school hours, leaving students unattended for multiple periods. These repeated occurrences result in less effective instructional hours, and students who do not receive the education that they deserve. Without reliable teachers or structured learning, students from low-income families are robbed of the chance to escape poverty through knowledge and skill-building.
Many explicit and implicit systems in place seem designed to keep the population uneducated. An uneducated people means more gullible and easily swayed by wrong motives and populist leaders across the country. As Indonesia is known for its cheap labor and manufacturing, it seems like the country benefits from the large percentage of the population not being highly educated or skilled. This makes the status quo hard to tackle, since our standing in the global arena is still seen as mere unskilled workforce.
There’s a clear challenge at hand here, where the wealth gap is further widened by the absence of a developed government-funded education system. Inaction by the previous and current administrations to combat this issue is a main contributor to why, in 2025, Indonesia continues to be faced with the same problem. This cyclical nature of the issue at hand forces one to think about where the cycle could be strategically halted. The government’s failure to create an equitable system allows the poor to remain uneducated and in turn, remain poor. It’s a self-sustaining cycle that requires bold intervention.
It is imperative that the government take a more active role in creating an education system – one which caters to the needs of the Indonesian children, tailored to their geographical, cultural and financial circumstances. If we want to lift the next Indonesian generation out of poverty, we must stop treating education as a privilege and start treating it as a right. Only then can we break the generational cycle that holds millions of Indonesians back from true prosperity.
Resources:
Yasir, H., Susetyo, D., & Bashir, A. (2024). The relationship between education inequality, poverty, and economic growth. Jurnal Informatika Ekonomi Bisnis, 6(2), 359–364. https://doi.org/10.37034/infeb.v6i2.867
Efendi, R., Indartono, S., & Sukidjo, S. (2019). The relationship of Indonesia’s poverty rate based on economic growth, health, and education. International Journal of Multicultural and Multireligious Understanding, 6(2), 323–330. https://doi.org/10.18415/ijmmu.v6i2.704
The Jakarta Post. (2024, May 4). Tackling learning poverty in a nation battling real poverty. The Jakarta Post.
The Jakarta Post. (2024, February 12). Addressing poverty and unemployment through education. The Jakarta Post.
Antara News. (2025, March 21). Indonesia to build 200 free boarding schools for underprivileged. Antara News.
Campus UNICEF 