Papua Lifts 1.36M From Extreme Poverty With New Schools

More than a million Indonesians have climbed out of extreme poverty in the past year and a half, and a new partnership in Papua shows how education and agriculture are powering that transformation.

Indonesia and China are joining forces to build a vocational high school in Merauke, South Papua, designed to train local workers for jobs that match the region's economic needs. The collaboration also includes an agricultural research center focused on developing rice varieties that can yield up to 8 tons per hectare, more than doubling typical harvests.

"Education can also become a gateway to job creation, which ultimately leads to poverty alleviation," said Minister of Transmigration M. Iftitah Sulaiman Suryanagara. The vocational school will give young Papuans hands-on training for careers in their own communities, reducing the need to leave home for opportunity.

The agricultural research center brings together Indonesia's National Research and Innovation Agency with China's National Rice Research Institute to improve farming methods and post-harvest processing. Better rice production supports both local food security and Indonesia's goal of national food self-sufficiency, a priority that President Prabowo Subianto has championed since taking office.

The results are already showing nationwide. Between March 2024 and September 2025, Indonesia's extreme poverty rate dropped from 1.26 percent to 0.78 percent. That translates to 1.36 million real people who now have enough to meet their basic needs.

The Ripple Effect

Papua's development matters far beyond the island itself. As the vocational school trains its first graduates, they'll return to their villages with skills that can lift entire families. The rice research center will share its high-yield varieties with farmers across Indonesia, multiplying food production in regions that have struggled with hunger.

Coordinating Minister for Community Empowerment Abdul Muhaimin Iskandar credited the progress to stronger coordination between government agencies working under Presidential Instruction No. 8 of 2025, which made poverty reduction a unified national priority. When ministries work together instead of in silos, solutions scale faster.

The Indonesia-China partnership focuses on sustainable change rather than quick fixes. By combining workforce training with agricultural innovation, the program creates a foundation for long-term economic growth that communities can build on for generations.

Every student who graduates from that new vocational school represents a family with more stability, more choices, and more hope.