Indonesia’s 2026 Education Budget Is the Biggest Ever… If You Don’t Look Too Closely

The biggest education budget in history? Maybe. But only if you count school lunch. Here’s what’s missing from the 2026 RAPBN.

When the government announced the 2026 RAPBN, the headlines practically wrote themselves. “Biggest education budget in history!” they declared. At Rp 757.8 trillion, the number was loud enough to make the front page and vague enough to avoid too many follow-up questions.

On paper, it's a win: a 5 percent bump from last year, ticking the constitutional ch…