Indonesia’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the government can no longer use the education budget to fund the multibillion-dollar free meal programme, dealing a blow to President Prabowo Subianto’s flagship policy. The ruling states that by 2028 at the latest, the free meal programme’s budget must be separated from the education budget, and recommends starting the separation from next year. Indonesia is due to submit its 2027 draft budget next month. The free meal programme began in 2025 with the goal of providing meals to 83 million schoolchildren and pregnant women. But the scale of the programme and the challenges of an archipelago nation of around 280 million people have saddled the government with enormous costs and raised concerns about the budget deficit. The finance ministry has allocated 769 trillion rupiah for education, of which 223 trillion rupiah has been earmarked for the free meal programme. The government has argued that the allocation is appropriate because promoting good nutrition should be part of education provision.