Finance Minister: We Will Comply with Constitutional Court Ruling on Free Nutritious Meal Programme
The government has signalled its intention to separate the budget for the Free Nutritious Meal (MBG) programme from the education budget allocation by 2028, in accordance with the transition period granted by the Constitutional Court. Several education activists had previously called for the government to implement this separation sooner than the stipulated deadline.
Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa noted that discussions for the 2027 State Budget (APBN) are already in their final stages. He suggested that revisiting the separation of the MBG budget at this stage would be difficult. “It would become complicated and exhausting for us to redo the work,” he stated at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta on Friday, 31 July 2026.
Consequently, he stated that the government will follow the timeline decided by the Constitutional Court, which is 2028. “If it is 2028, then it will be 2028. The Court likely calculated that this has already been discussed and only needs finalisation. If everything changes now, we will not make it in time,” he said. He added that the government will comply with the mandate of the court’s decision, likely implementing the separation for the 2028 budget.
Currently, Purbaya noted that he has not yet discussed the separation of the MBG budget from the education budget with President Prabowo Subianto. The nutritious meal programme is an initiative by President Prabowo to provide meals for school children, toddlers, pregnant women, and breastfeeding mothers.
The Constitutional Court partially granted a lawsuit (case number 40/PUU-XXIV/202<0xA0>26) regarding the judicial review of Law Number 17 of 2025 concerning the 2026 State Budget. The lawsuit was filed by the Yayasan Taman Belajar Nusantara alongside four citizens.
The petitioners challenged the inclusion of the free nutritious meal project within the education budget, as stipulated in Article 22, paragraph 3 of the 2026 State Budget Law. In its ruling, the Court declared that this regulation contradicts the constitutional mandate. The Court stated that the MBG project can no longer be included within the operational definition of educational implementation. Constitutional Court Judge Enny Nurbaningsih stated that the MBG budget must be separated from the education budget in subsequent years of the State Budget.
The Court emphasised that this separation is intended to protect the constitutional mandate regarding the 20 per cent mandatory spending for education. This separation, she noted, also provides a strong legal basis for the implementation of the MBG project as a priority government programme. The Court stipulated that the separation of the MBG budget from the education budget must be completed no later than the 2028 State Budget, or at the latest, two years from the reading of the decision.
The Indonesian Education Monitoring Network (JPPI) welcomed the Constitutional Court’s decision to partially grant the petition. However, JPPI expressed disappointment that the separation is not required to begin immediately with the 2027 budget. “This is an important victory for the protection of the education budget. However, we are disappointed that the correction is not mandated to start from the 2027 budget,” said JPPI National Coordinator Ubaid Matraji in a statement on Wednesday, 30 July 2026.
According to Ubaid, the two-year transition period is too long and inconsistent with the substance of the Court’s considerations. He argued that since the ruling affirms that the nutritious meal programme is not a core component of education, its funding should be separated and no longer part of the operational budget for educational implementation.