JAKARTA: What do scholarship awardees owe to their benefactors? What does contributing to your country look like? Should a country where only two-thirds of the population have high school education be sending students overseas?
These questions were sparked by an Instagram video by Dwi “Tyas” Sasetyaningtyas, an Indonesian environmental influencer and business owner who now lives in Britain.
The video, posted on Feb 13, showed her “unboxing” a British passport for her second child. She expressed her pride and happiness that her child is now officially a British citizen.
“I know the world seems unfair, but let me be the one who bears Indonesian citizenship, not my children,” she said at the end of the now-deleted video.
The comment alone might not have made too many waves – the sentiment is not unusual in Indonesian online spaces, as evidenced by the popularity of the #KaburAjaDulu (Just Run Away First) hashtag in 2025 – had it not turned out that Tyas had been a recipient of the Indonesian government’s Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP) scholarship in 2015.
The fact drew hundreds of negative comments on the video, with many calling out Tyas for her perceived ingratitude towards the country that funded her studies. “I can’t believe that my tax money was used for this,” one commenter said.
The controversy was magnified when internet sleuths discovered that Tyas’ husband, Arya Irwantoro, was also an LPDP awardee, and he had not completed the requirement to return to Indonesia after finishing his master’s and doctoral studies in Europe in 2022.
Tyas eventually released a statement apologising for her comments on Feb 19, but by then the firestorm surrounding her post had grown so large that government officials felt the need to weigh in.
On Feb 22, Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology Stella Christie told news outlet Kompas.com that state-sponsored scholarship awardees owed a “debt of gratitude” to the country.
On Feb 24, Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa, whose ministry oversees LPDP, said at a press conference that LPDP awardees should not “denigrate” the country. He added that Tyas and Arya would both be blacklisted from government positions, and that Arya would be asked to return the scholarship money he received with interest.
At the same press conference, LPDP executive director Sudarto said the agency had looked into 600 awardees, 44 of whom were suspected to have not met the return requirements. “Sanctions have been imposed on eight (awardees) in the form of refunds, while the other 36 are being processed.”
In a separate briefing on Feb 25, Sudarto told the press that LPDP is considering publishing the names of non-compliant awardees on its website to encourage other LPDP alumni to follow through on their commitments.
But amid the fallout from Tyas’ comments, wider-ranging discussions have emerged about whether LPDP awardees should be required to return, what kind of contributions should be expected of them, and even whether LPDP funds should be allocated elsewhere.
While LPDP awardees who spoke to The Straits Times had differing views, they all agreed on one thing: Tyas’ video was insensitive, given her status as an LPDP alumna.
Nea Ningtyas, a 30-year-old editor who studied digital media in Britain, said she thought at first that netizens were overreacting.
“But then I saw that she was an LPDP awardee, and that changed how I saw it,” she said.
Another LPDP awardee, Ayu, 34, who wished to known only by her middle name out of privacy concerns, expressed a similar sentiment.
“I’ve seen a lot of similar videos with Indonesians showing off their kids’ Australian passports, New Zealand passports, German passports and so on, that didn’t create much controversy because they didn’t receive LPDP scholarships,” she said. “I think that we as LPDP awardees should be more careful about what we say and post online.”
To return or not
LPDP started off as an initiative by then Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati in 2009 when she was serving under the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono administration.
The Indonesian Constitution mandates that at least 20 per cent of the state budget each year go towards education. These funds are not always fully spent each year, so the unused amount was allocated to an endowment fund, which was eventually earmarked for post-graduate scholarships.
As at 2025, fewer than one per cent of Indonesians have a master’s or doctoral degree, according to the Central Statistics Agency.
The first LPDP scholarships were awarded in 2013, and since then, the government has granted 58,360 scholarships for post-graduate studies. LPDP grants most of its scholarships for post-graduate degrees in domestic universities, but around 40 per cent of its awardees study abroad.
Whether awardees should be required to return is a longstanding topic.
Previously, LPDP awardees who study abroad were required to return for two times their term of study plus one year, commonly known as “2n+1”, in order to “contribute” to the country. In 2025, this was reduced to “2n”. The requirement takes effect within 90 days of graduation, though awardees can request extensions for further studies abroad.
Ayu said that when she was applying for scholarships in 2014, she did not see the requirement to return as a hardship. She noted that other scholarships, such as the Chevening Scholarship funded by the British government, also require grantees to contribute to their countries of origin and the country of the scholarship.
“I would rather owe a debt to my own country than to a foreign one.”
On the other hand, current LPDP awardee Nadia (not her real name) said the requirement should be more flexible depending on the awardee’s situation. The 30-year-old, who is studying social sciences at a US university, declined to use her real name so she could speak freely about the LPDP.
“I think that for certain fields that do not have a ready ecosystem in Indonesia, it doesn’t make sense to force awardees to go home immediately,” said Nadia, who is enrolled in a two-year social sciences programme.
Nea agreed, noting that LPDP had no clear metrics on how to measure awardees’ contributions to the country. “I think that if in the contract it says you have to return, then you should return,” she said. “But if the question is about impact, returning to Indonesia alone doesn’t necessarily mean you’re contributing something.”
The LPDP scholarship has faced many controversies over the years, ranging from accusations of sexism and religious bias in its selection process to questions on whether certain awardees – especially those affiliated with the government or from wealthy families – were deserving of the grant.
In 2024, Stella said LPDP allocations would be “assessed”, prompting speculation that the scholarship may be cut back or even abolished. No such changes have come to pass, but this latest brouhaha is likely to prompt further scrutiny on the scholarship and its holders.
As for whether LPDP funds could be better used elsewhere, all three awardees who spoke to ST acknowledged that even if educational opportunities in Indonesia are still unequal, scrapping the scholarship altogether would be a loss for the country.
“There are so many things out there in terms of knowledge and technology that we might not have the ecosystem for. And the way to catch up with that is by going to other places and learning from there,” Nadia said.
“Even if we can’t go back home and immediately create the same thing, at least we’ll have an influence overseas.” - The Straits Times/ANN
