The Number of Out-of-School Children is Still High, What about Indonesia Towards the Golden Generation of 2045?

Education is a basic effort to realize the development of the potential of the nation's children to have spiritual strength, self-control, religion, personality, morals, intelligence, general knowledge, life sciences and skills needed for themselves and society based on the Law. Education is generally divided into several stages, such as PAUD / TK (preschool), SD / MI, SMP / MTs, SMA / SMK / MA, and College or University.

School is an educational institution in which learning and teaching activities are organized or a place to receive and give lessons or knowledge under the supervision of teachers. To provide knowledge and skills that will help the nation's children in character building, individual empowerment, increasing employment opportunities, and creating a more harmonious and advanced society.

However, will the 44.197 million children aged 7-18 years in Indonesia in 2022 receive an equitable education? Meanwhile, based on Susenas 2022 data processed by Bapenas, there are more than 4 million children who do not have access to education.

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) in the data "Number of Out-of-School Children by Education Level and Gender in 2022-2023" (updated on May 26, 2024), as many as 0.69% at the primary school level; 6.93% at the junior high school level; and 22.06% at the senior high school level, are not or have never been to school.

The data above shows that until now education in Indonesia has not been equitable at all. In fact, according to data released by Worldtop20.org, by 2023 Indonesia's education ranking will be 67th out of 209 countries in the world.

This is still factored by several educational challenges in Indonesia, such as limited access to education, a curriculum that is not fully relevant, uneven quality of education, lack of qualified human resources, not optimal teacher welfare, equitable distribution of educational infrastructure, declining national competitiveness, low economic circumstances and parental background and lack of parental attention, poor friendship environment and lack of student interest in school and student learning motivation.