Teachers, Students to Get Phone Credit Subsidy for Online Learning in Indonesia

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com – Educators and students are scheduled to receive phone credit subsidy at the end of this month as part of the government efforts to support online learning during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The chief executive of the Covid-19 Handling and National Economic Recovery Committee, Erick Thohir, said that the government social assistance will be distributed to lecturers, teachers, university students as well as primary and secondary school students of both government and private schools.

“I have checked the [progress] of the social assistance program in the form of phone credit yesterday,” said Erick, who is also the minister of state-owned enterprises on Friday, September 11.

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“Besides the phone credit subsidy there will be a bigger program assistance for the lecturers, teachers, and students when the Ministry of Education and Culture launches the program at the end of September, Insya Allah [God willing],” he added.

He also said the government will also continue to provide the cash transfer program to lessen the burden on the people during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Yesterday the president’s direction was to extend the cash transfer program to early next year. This program includes wage subsidy, assistance for the micro, small and medium enterprises, and pre-employment card program,” he said.

Previously, a spokesperson for the Finance Ministry Rahayu Puspasari said that the phone credit and data packages used for distance learning will be under the budget for the education sector in the national economic recovery program. The implementation of the subsidy will be under the purview of the Ministry of Education and Culture.

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“The data packages for the education sector aim to help students from both public and private education institutions,” Rahayu said on September 7.

The program is in line with the finance minister decree on providing a monthly data package of up to 150,000 rupiahs ($10) per person for students who participate in the distance learning during the Covid-19 pandemic.

(Writer: Akhdi Martin Pratama | Editor: Bambang P. Jatmiko)

Source: https://money.kompas.com/read/2020/09/11/151243226/erick-thohir-program-subsidi-pulsa-diluncurkan-akhir-september.