VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati. (ANTARA/HO-Ministry of Finance/pri/ac)

Indonesia’s Minister of Finance, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, has said the COVID-19 pandemic could provide momentum for reforms in various fields, including education, health, social security, and infrastructure.

“We want to use the moment of COVID-19 as a momentum to reform many sectors, namely education, health, and social security. We are heading for a future where Indonesians are at the core,” she said at an online discussion in Jakarta on Wednesday.

To become big, she continued, a country needs great people, which makes improving the quality of human resources (HR) a priority.

“There is no great country without great people. It (a country’s wealth) is always in the (quality of its) human resources,” she said.

She further said that the participation rate for basic education in Indonesia has now reached 100 percent, however, the next challenge is to ensure that learners reach a higher level of accomplishment.

"Can they think critically? We are still left behind. The Indonesian demographic is dominated by young people, this must be considered. The welfare of all the children of the nation's future is important," she added.

Ensuring justice for all Indonesian people must also be a priority, considering that poor families will not have access to good health and education, she pointed out.

Not only that, Sri Mulyani stated, Indonesia is also still lagging in the infrastructure sector even though currently, access to travel between cities, between islands, and between countries is considerably easy.

"We have a gap in infrastructure, especially outside Java. All islands from Sumatra to Papua," Sri Mulyani continued.

She said she believes the development of equitable infrastructure in all corners of Indonesia is an important aspect in efforts to make it an upper middle income country.

"Infrastructure is still needed to go to upper middle income and even to upper country (level),” she added.

The minister said she wishes to see all Indonesian children getting the same opportunity to access public services, with the support of good institutions at the government, state-owned enterprises, and private levels.

"What legacy do you want to see in the future? I want to see all the nation's children have the same opportunity to get access to public services," she remarked. (ANTARA)