Established in 2011, the LPDP (Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education) provides scholarships for Master’s and PhD programmes for Indonesian citizens with excellent academic achievements and strong leadership qualities. LPDP has so far provided scholarships to 19,430 Indonesian students, 51% of which choose to study abroad. The UK has been the number one most popular study destination chosen by the LPDP scholarships awardees.
The LPDP Annual Report for the year 2017 has just been published (the report is always published a year later), and we can see some trends in Government of Indonesia funded scholarships:[1]
- More than half of LPDP scholarship funding is allocated for domestic awards.The number of domestic scholarship awardees increases from 1,794 in 2015 to 5,969 in 2017.
- Despite a drop from 946 awardee in 2015 to 895 in 2017, the UK remains the most popular overseas study destination for LPDP awardees.
- Among other English speaking countries, Australia is the UK’s strongest competitor. The number of LPDP awardees going to Australia grew significantly from 567 in 2015 to 829 in 2017.
- A notable trend from the LPDP 2017 Report is the rise of Russia. Almost coming from nowhere, with 133 awardees Russia is leapfrogging Germany, France and Sweden as an LPDP study destination
[1] LPDP Annual Report does not contain numbers from Ministry of Religious Affairs (MoRA) 5000 PhD Scholarships. Some data from 2016 Report is missing, and hence is not used in this article for comparison.
Table 1: LPDP Study Destinations (2015 and 2017)
| No | 2015 | 2017 |
| 1 | Indonesia: 1,794 awardees (39.3%) | Indonesia: 5,969 awardees (59.8%) |
| 2 | UK: 946 awardees (20.7%) | UK: 895 awardees (9%) |
| 3 | Australia: 567 awardees (12.4%) | Australia: 829 awardees (8.3%) |
| 4 | Netherland: 428 awardees (9.4%) | Netherland: 684 awardees (6.9%) |
| 5 | USA: 220 awardees (4.8%) | Japan: 349 awardees (3.5%) |
| 6 | Japan: 157 awardees (3.4%) | USA: 337 awardees (3.4%) |
| 7 | Germany: 75 awardees (1.6%) | Russia: 133 awardees (1.3%) |
| 8 | Sweden: 56 awardees (1.2%) | Germany: 125 awardees (1.3%) |
| 9 | France: 46 awardees (1%) | France: 79 awardees (0.8%) |
| 10 | Malaysia: 44 awardees (0.1%) | Sweden: 79 awardees (0.8%) |
| 11 | Other countries: 232 awardees (5.1%) | Other countries: 496 awardees (5%) |
| Total | All countries: 4,565 awardees (100%) | All countries: 9,975 awardees (100%) |
Engineering remains the most popular field of study chosen by LPDP awardees in 2017, with medical sciences and health growing in popularity. In the self-funded market, business studies is still the preferred subject.
Table 2: Top Five Field of Study Chosen by LPDP Awardee (2015 and 2017)
| No | 2015 | 2017 |
| 1 | Engineering | Engineering |
| 2 | Science | Science |
| 3 | Education | Education |
| 4 | Social Sciences | Medical Science and Health |
| 5 | Economic | Social Sciences |
Commentary by Lisa Wilianto:
The new LPDP application timeline and universities list for overseas scholarship applications has not been announced yet. The presidential election in April 2019 may cause further delay.
We will produce further market news relating to LPDP when new information becomes available.