32,000 New Students to Enrol in Sekolah Rakyat by Mid-2026

Thirty-two thousand new students will enter Sekolah Rakyat in the middle of this year. Social Affairs Minister Saifullah Yusuf, or Gus Ipul, stated that they will begin schooling in July for the 2026/2027 academic year.

Saifullah reported the preparations to welcome the students to President Prabowo Subianto. “We will seek guidance from Mr President. We are also reporting the preparations in detail,” Saifullah said before meeting Prabowo at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta on Tuesday, 12 May 2026.

Saifullah conveyed that the number of Sekolah Rakyat students accepted this year has doubled from last year. In 2025, this free residential education programme for children from extremely poor families under President Prabowo’s government accepted around 15,000 students.

That number will be increased by 32,000 new students in 2026. “That means combined, this year there will already be around 46,000 or more Sekolah Rakyat students,” Saifullah said.

In addition to reporting the Sekolah Rakyat programme to Prabowo, Saifullah also discussed social assistance or bansos policies with the President. Since the beginning of this year, the ministry has stopped providing social assistance or bansos to dozens of thousands of recipients.

Saifullah said the reason is that the beneficiaries were playing online gambling or judol. According to Saifullah, more than 11,000 beneficiary families have been removed from the recipient list in the last three months. “We removed them in the first quarter of 2026,” he said.

The cessation of bansos for online gambling players continues into the second quarter of 2026. Entering May, Saifullah stated that there are already 75 beneficiary families of the Social Ministry’s bansos who have also been removed.

Saifullah conveyed that the data on bansos recipients playing judol was obtained from the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK) since last year. In 2025, he said, PPATK reported that the number of bansos recipients playing online gambling reached 600,000 and they have been removed.

The Social Ministry also assesses that the number of bansos recipients playing judol has now decreased. Because, Saifullah said, the removal figure which previously reached 600,000 last year has now dropped to around 11,000 at the beginning of 2026.