House Commission XI: Hundreds of Trillions in Education Funds Go Unspent

The Deputy Chairman of Commission XI of the House of Representatives (DPR), which oversees financial affairs, Dolfie Othniel Frederic Palit, has assessed that the government has failed to fulfil the constitutional mandate requiring the state to allocate 20 per cent of the State Budget (APBN) to education. This is because the allocated education funds have frequently not been utilised to their full potential.

“According to the Constitutional Court’s ruling, this deprives the people of their constitutional rights in the field of education as regulated in the 1945 Constitution,” said Dolfie during a working meeting to discuss fiscal policy and the preparation of the 2027 Financial Note with the Directorate General of the Ministry of Finance at the DPR, Jakarta, on Monday, 15 June 2026.

Dolfie explained that the unutilised education funds over the last five years have reached hundreds of trillions of rupiah. In 2021, for instance, unutilised education funds reached Rp 70 trillion, which then increased to Rp 141 trillion in 2022, Rp 110 trillion in 2023, Rp 99 trillion in 2024, and Rp 67 trillion in 2025.

According to Dolfie, such funds should have been used to improve educational facilities, build schools, or expand scholarship access for students. “The Financial Note does state 20 per cent (of the APBN), but when it comes to spending, it is not one hundred per cent. Why is that?” he asked.

Dolfie further explained that the failure to utilise these funds is not merely due to the slow implementation of educational programmes. Beyond that, he believes there is a more structural issue regarding how the government calculates the fulfilment of the minimum 20 per cent education budget allocation within the APBN.

One of the issues is that some components of the education budget are placed under financing items rather than being spent directly. In 2021, for example, the government allocated Rp 66 trillion in financing items related to education, but only Rp 29 trillion was realised. In 2022, the allocation for financing reached Rp 117 trillion, while the realisation was only Rp 20 trillion.

In fact, referring to Article 80 paragraph (1) of Government Regulation Number 18 of 2022 concerning Education Funding, the education budget should be allocated at a minimum of 20 per cent of state expenditure, not from financing.

Dolfie continued, the problem is that the government has been placing part of the education funds into financing components to support the management of State Securities (SBSN). However, this debt does not originate solely from the education sector.

Dolfly assessed that this approach makes all state debt appear as if it is being burdened onto the education sector. “In reality, all sectors contribute to creating the debt that must be borne through SBSN. Not just education,” he said.

For Dolfie, this method of allocating funds makes it appear as though the government has met the 20 per cent mandatory spending, but in reality, the funds are hidden within financing components. “This is why the education budget never actually reaches 20 per cent. The Ministry of Finance is depriving the people of their constitutional rights in the field of education,” he stated.

Therefore, in the preparation of the 2027 Financial Note, Dolfie requested that components currently placed in financing items be moved to central government expenditure or transfers to regions. According to him, this step is necessary to ensure that the fulfilment of the education budget complies with the constitutional mandate and does not diminish the public’s right to access educational services.