Criticism of Social Ministry's Method for Recruiting Street Children for People's Schools
National Coordinator of the Indonesian Education Monitoring Network, Ubaid Matraji, has criticised the Ministry of Social Affairs’ method of screening street children in Jakarta to recruit them as prospective students for people’s schools. Ubaid stated that if the goal is to fulfil the right to education, the government’s approach must be persuasive and supportive, not a security-like method resembling a raid or crackdown.
“I appreciate the effort to reach children neglected by the system. However, we strongly reject using student recruitment as a pretext to legitimise actions resembling raids,” he said when contacted on Saturday, 25 April 2026.
He explained that education is a fundamental human right for everyone and not a gift from the government delivered through enforcement processes. He urged the government to prioritise a humanitarian approach so that these children feel embraced, not captured.
Furthermore, Ubaid sees the possibility that street children are being exploited to meet quotas for the number of students who will study at 10 pilot people’s school sites being built by the Ministry of Social Affairs. These 10 pilot people’s school sites use buildings owned by government agencies in Jakarta and surrounding areas deemed suitable by the Ministry of Public Works.
According to Ubaid, the screening of prospective people’s school students is not based on the children’s needs, but to fulfil quotas so that the new school appears viable and administratively successful.
“The government seems more proud of showcasing the inauguration of new buildings (physical infrastructure) than improving an inclusive education system,” he said.
Ubaid believes the problem of street children in Jakarta is not the availability of school buildings, but accessibility and economic barriers. Therefore, he disagrees with the government continuing to build new people’s schools. According to him, they should be integrated into existing schools through intensive support and guarantees for living costs.
He believes people’s schools in remote areas would be more needed than in the Jakarta region. He also warned the government to stop using marginalised children as tools to meet people’s school project quotas.
“Why is the Ministry of Social Affairs and the central government busy hunting for children in Jakarta, where educational facilities are already complete?” said Ubaid.
The Ministry of Social Affairs is screening street children in the Jakarta area to recruit them as prospective students for people’s schools in the new academic year 2026/2027. Social Minister Saifullah Yusuf said the government is combing areas such as road intersections and markets to locate neglected or out-of-school children.
From the combing in the Pejompongan area, Central Jakarta, 77 children from poor families were gathered who have the potential to become people’s school students. Of these, 29 were claimed to have been found while they were active on the streets.
“We are looking for school-age children who should be studying, but instead are begging or working to help their parents,” said the man often called Gus Ipul after visiting the People’s School at the National Administration Institution (LAN) Complex, Jakarta, on Wednesday, 22 April 2026, quoted from Antara.
According to Gus Ipul, dozens of these children are undergoing verification of complete data to be matched with the National Unified Socio-Economic Database (DTSEN). The PBNU General Secretary claimed that the Ministry of Social Affairs will ensure these children are registered in deciles 1 and 2 of DTSEN through home tracing.
Now, the Ministry of Social Affairs not only visits homes registered in the lowest deciles of DTSEN, but also directly picks up children from crowded centres in Jakarta to bring them into people’s schools. This is done by Ministry of Social Affairs officers, Jakarta Social Services, and the Central Bureau of Statistics.
“This is part of the attention from Mr President Prabowo so that out-of-school children, those who have not yet attended school, are not attending school, or are at risk of dropping out, can be reached through these people’s schools. That’s the essence,” he stated.