DKI Education Office Seeks Ways to Accelerate Funding Disbursement for Free Private Schools
The DKI Jakarta Provincial Government has begun offering free education at 40 private schools since the 2025-2026 academic year. Even so, the number of private schools made free is set to increase to 103 in the 2026-2027 academic year.
Nevertheless, one head of a private school benefiting from the programme has criticised the funding disbursement policy from the DKI Education Office (Disdik). This is because the disbursement was only carried out after the teaching and learning activities had been running for about six months.
Head of Disdik DKI Nahdiana explained that the lengthy disbursement process occurred because the programme was newly implemented in the 2025-2026 academic year. “It took a long time because the 2025 one was the first,” she said at the DKI City Hall in Central Jakarta on Wednesday (22/4/2026).
Nahdiana acknowledged that in the initial stage of the programme, funding disbursement could only be conducted in November to December 2025. This was due to Disdik DKI needing to harmonise regulations with the Ministry of Home Affairs (Kemendagri) before utilising the budget.
“It was only after harmonisation with Kemendagri and others that it was completed in November, so the payment was after the children started in July. It seems like from July to November there was no payment. But actually, we were waiting for the regulations,” said Nahdiana.
Meanwhile, for this year’s funding disbursement, it was carried out one semester after the teaching and learning activities (KBM) began. According to her, her office is currently processing the disbursement of funds to the schools.
“For this semester, it was planned to be paid one semester later, for this year. This is also already in process. So it’s not really late,” Nahdiana stated.
Despite this, she admitted to having heard several inputs regarding the timing of funding disbursement for the free private schools. Currently, Disdik DKI is still seeking the appropriate formula for the funding disbursement.
“Well, for the future, based on the inputs, we will review whether it will be like BOP every three months, like BOS from the central government every three months, we will look into that,” said Nahdiana.