The Indonesian government is clamping down on what it says is a common exploitation of government scholarships to study abroad.
The government, through various ministries, awards a number of taxpayers-funded scholarships for higher education abroad, on the condition that the awardees devote themselves to professional careers in Indonesia upon successful completion of their study.
Theoretically, these scholarships aim to boost the quality of the Indonesian workforce.
But the government recognizes that the scholarships have long been exploited, particularly by those who fail to return to work in Indonesia after studying abroad.
“The scheme is that after their study, they return to Indonesia to work temporarily (for a shorter period than what was agreed upon in their scholarship terms). After that, they quit their job here in order to return to [work in] the country they went to school for,” said Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) deputy head Bambang Subiyanto during a visit to the University of Queensland, Australia, as quoted by Media Indonesia.
Bambang added that many scholarship recipients were enticed by the prospect of higher pay when working abroad compared to Indonesia. However, he warned that awardees who fail to meet their end of the bargain will be “treated like criminals” and that the government is hiring debt collectors to get the violators to return their scholarship money to the government.
“I know some people who had to pay Rp 3 billion to Rp 4 billion because of this,” he said.
Deliberately escaping from the terms of government scholarships is certainly indefensible, but perhaps this would be less of a problem if people who graduate from the world’s top universities have more of a reason to return to Indonesia other than for contractual obligation.
