The Batman Trap in the LPDP Test

Rahman, a pseudonym, did not expect to receive a question that veered away from academic matters when he applied for the Lembaga Pengelola Dana Pendidikan (LPDP) scholarship in 2018. He was asked about his views on interfaith marriage. As someone who had benefited from a modern education and read widely on pluralism, Rahman felt the question was a trap.

“I answered that as long as the two people loved each other, there was no problem,” said the 31-year-old man from Brebes, Central Java, to detikX.

However, one of the panel members refuted Rahman’s argument. The examiner claimed that interfaith marriage is prohibited in Indonesia, as set out in Article 2(1) of Law Number 1 of 1974 on Marriage. This statute states that a marriage is only legally valid if conducted according to the laws of the respective religion or belief.

The issue, Rahman says, was that the examiner’s question did not specifically address the rule but only concerned personal views. For Rahman, opinions or views are free and he believed he was entitled to express any view he believed to be true.

“If the question had been about the rule from the start, I could have said the rule prohibits it, although there are many loopholes that could be argued,” Rahman said.

That one question, according to Rahman, was what caused him to fail to obtain the LPDP scholarship. Rahman’s dream of studying abroad nearly vanished. The tens of millions of rupiah he expended pursuing a scholarship to study abroad nearly went to waste.

During the LPDP test preparation process, Rahman admits to having spent at least Rp 20 million. First, he needed to study intensive English at Kampung Inggris, Pare, Kediri, East Java, for eight months at a cost of about Rp 10 million. Then the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) test cost about Rp 2.6 million. This was in addition to travel expenses from Brebes to Jakarta and accommodation in Jakarta for the LPDP test, costing about Rp 7.5 million.

Fortuitously, Rahman eventually secured a scholarship at a university in Italy. The entrance test for this scholarship was far easier than the LPDP one. The examiners only asked questions relevant to the department Rahman intended to study.

“They only asked about forestry, my thesis, agroforestry, community-based forest management, which is precisely my field,” Rahman said.

A nearly similar experience was had by Anggi, a pseudonym. The 31-year-old woman has attempted LPDP five times. Two attempts failed at the scholastic aptitude test stage when she sought to pursue a Master’s degree in 2018 and 2019. Then three times failed at the interview stage when Anggi aimed to undertake a PhD in 2024-2025.

In the LPDP interview session, Anggi recalled receiving questions that, in her view, slightly strayed from academic matters. One interviewer asked about her readiness as a wife and a student who would eventually become pregnant.

“They asked how she would cope if she became pregnant in the middle of her studies and how she would manage her child,” Anggi told detikX.

That question seemed to limit women’s opportunities to pursue higher education by pitting education against child-rearing. As if women must not have any priorities other than caring for children. Indeed, Anggi argued that child-rearing is not solely the burden of women but of men as well. Moreover, Anggi added, rather than asking about the candidate’s domestic arrangements, interviewers should focus on questions that test the candidate’s academic abilities.

Besides those allegedly discriminatory questions, Anggi felt the LPDP scholarship test tended to lack transparency. Questions irrelevant to the academic scope made pass/fail decisions highly subjective. There were no clear criteria for what the examiners actually wanted or measured. Moreover, the interview is the final test in the LPDP process.

This process differs markedly from other scholarship tests. As a recipient of a scholarship from a Hungarian university, Anggi felt that the campus entrance test was far more objective. Because admission was measured solely on academic ability rather than extraneous factors.

“The selection process was consolidated into a single platform—scholarship selection and university entrance were combined. So you don’t have to apply separately; it’s all on the website in one place. It tends to be easier and more transparent,” Anggi said.

The existence of off-topic questions is also acknowledged by another LPDP scholarship recipient, Jumari, a pseudonym. Jumari revealed that many of her friends, especially women who were fellow scholarship seekers, faced questions that were offensive, discriminatory, and misogynistic.

For example, Jumari said one of her female friends was asked about marriage plans to a foreign national (WNA). The candidate had never mentioned marriage in her motivation letter.

“In the context of my friend’s story, it was very offensive. And eventually my friend did not pass,” Jumari told detikX.

Education analyst and diversity activist Tunggal Pawestri says the issue is a classic LPDP problem. He conducted a simple study with LPDP recipients and candidates regarding questions in LPDP interview sessions in 2017. The results showed many participants reported questions that tended to be SARA (ethno-religious), sexist, and political, especially during the session on national insight.

In this session, examiners frequently asked participants for their views on Papua’s independence and the Indonesian Communist Party. One example was whether the state would be right not to place PKI offspring in government. Or questions about participants’ views regarding Papua’s independence.