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Despite the government pouring hundreds of billions of rupiah into higher education scholarship programs, there has been little interest from the public, an education official complained.

“This year the Education Ministry is providing a fund of Rp 630 billion [$66.8 million] for scholarships. Although it’s a big amount, the public is barely aware of it,” said Widyo Sunarso, head of the National Education Ministry’s scholarship program.

The money is being distributed to state-owned and private universities through Kopertis, the coordinating state agency for private higher education.

“However, a lot of private universities then claim that this is their own scholarship program,” said Widyo, speaking to the media on Thursday during the distribution of 22 scholarships by The Village Mall.

Arief Rahman, chief executive of the Indonesian National Commission for Unesco, pointed to four problems in the state-scholarship program, but the dissemination of information to the public about scholarships was not at the top of the list.

“First, the criteria that determine which student gets which scholarship,” he said. “Second, the criteria themselves ­— who is entitled to a scholarship? Third is the selection team and the fourth is making it [the availability of scholarships] widely known.”

To encourage the public to apply for scholarships, Arief said the National Education Ministry or other state education agencies must take care of these issues.

“The government should not just look at the academic criteria but also equal geographical distribution,” he said. “The state scholarship program should focus on how to give an equal opportunity to every student in Indonesia.

“Scholarship criteria for the University of Indonesia in Jakarta should not be applied to students from Cenderawasih University in Papua,” Arief said.

He also accused the state of n ot being fully transparent and open about its scholarship programs. “Some people in the government agencies have ‘favorite universities,’ so whenever there’s a scholarship opportunity, he or she will only inform that particular university.”

According to Widyo, in addition to the Rp 630 billion regular scholarship fund, the National Education Ministry also has a Rp 200 billion scholarship program that is distributed specifically to 20,000 students from low-income families.

This program, called Bidik Misi, provides scholarships of up to Rp 10 million per student per year.