Cost of a schoolbook: 10-year-old Indonesia boy’s suicide exposes limits of income-based poverty metrics

A child in East Nusa Tenggara Indonesia, took his own life after his family struggled to afford schoolbooks and pens. The boy, a student in elementary school, was 10 years old. Before the tragedy, he and his classmates had been asked by the school to pay Rp 1.2 million in tuition fees.

This incident is a reminder of how vulnerability can build quietly over time. Poverty and vulnerability rarely arrive in a single moment; it often accumulates across schooling, health coverage, and access to basic services. The deeper question, then, is how can we strengthen our systems so that such vulnerability is recognised earlier and addressed sooner?

If signals of deprivation, i.e., irregular school attendance, lack of documentation, gaps in basic services, are detected in time, support can be mobilised before distress becomes overwhelming. It is crucial that we start to think about building a development approach that sees families more clearly and responds more quickly, so that no child feels that a schoolbook stands between them and their future.

Indonesia’s poverty metrics rely primarily on household consumption, yet many “non‑poor” households still lack basic services. Children feel these hidden deprivations first, revealing limits of such monetary measures.

UNICEF said children face deprivations differently and often more severely than adults; even above the poverty line, they may lack legal identity, schooling, sanitation, electricity, or other essential services.

In Nusa Tenggara Timur, multidimensional indicators examining deprivation across different aspects of life, following those measured within the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), illustrate how different deprivations cluster.

Recent indicator headcounts using National Socio-Economic Survey or Susenas 2025 data show that 12.0 percent of individuals are deprived in school attendance (these are individuals living in a household where at least one child aged 0-18 is not in school), 7.7 percent individuals lack actual access to health insurance, despite universal healthcare through Indonesia’s universal health insurance or  BPJS, 13.6 percent individuals lack safe water according to SDG definitions, 19.7 percent individuals lack adequate sanitation according to SDG definitions, 12.7 percent lack access to on-the-grid  electricity, 7.5 percent experience child labour (these are individuals living in a household where at least one child aged 0-18 in the household records having worked in the last week), 9.9 percent lack preschool access (these are individuals living in a household where a child aged 0-6 years old is not in pre-school).

These figures, and global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) and Multiple Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (MODA) computations for Indonesia, reveal that hardship, particularly for children, rarely comes in isolation. They overlap. A child deprived in education is often also deprived in other dimensions that shape daily life. Income poverty alone cannot capture this accumulation of vulnerability.

Multidimensional poverty broadens our understanding beyond income alone to include concrete deprivations. The Multidimensional Poverty Index measures disadvantages in education, health, housing, assets, and access to basic services, capturing not only how many people are poor, but how intensely they experience overlapping hardship.

In provinces such as Nusa Tenggara Timur, overlapping deprivations are not the exception but the norm. The Multidimensional Poverty Index offers a clearer map of lived hardship than income alone, making visible the layered vulnerabilities that often accumulate quietly before a crisis emerges. Had multidimensional warning signs, such as irregular school attendance or lack of health insurance, triggered timely and coordinated support, at least one child’s path might have unfolded differently.

Problem of data use

Indonesia already has the data to construct multidimensional poverty tools to underlie evidence-based policies. Indonesia’s Central Statistics Agency gathers multidimensional data like National Socio-Economic Survey (Susenas) covers education, health, housing, sanitation, water, and assets, and village level potential assets and liabilities data (Podes).

The real gap lies in how these data are used. Socio-economic data in Indonesia are still used primarily for administrative purposes, i.e., classifying households as poor, determining eligibility, and monitoring national development targets. Yet the challenges we face today extend beyond categorisation, as cases like the one in NTT remind us. Deprivation can emerge long before a family is officially classified as poor.

For example, reports from the Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection indicate that some children in East Nusa Tenggara lack birth certificates, which may result in the absence of a National Identification Number. Without legal identity, these children risk exclusion from social protection programmes and even from basic public services.

Importantly, birth registration information is already captured in national surveys such as Susenas. This means early identification is possible. The real gap, therefore, is not in data availability, but in how these data are mobilised, shifting from administrative classification toward proactive, preventive action that addresses vulnerability before it gets worse.

Turning to policy responses, Indonesia has a strong tradition of grassroots, community-driven development. Mechanisms such as Musrenbang (village deliberations) institutionalise participatory planning from the village level upward. Decentralisation has long been framed to bring policy closer to citizens. But implementation often remains sectoral and siloed: education addressed separately from health, housing separated from social protection. Poor households, however, experience deprivation as interconnected realities. Here, MPI can serve as a bridge.

Multidimensional indicators help villages and local governments see which deprivations cluster, schooling, sanitation, electricity, child labour, so they can plan together. Used locally, MPI aligns national data with community realities and shifts development toward real well‑being outcomes.

This shift in measurement is not abstract. It has direct implications for Indonesia’s flagship social protection programmes. Cash transfer  for poor families and education assistance for deprived families have played an important role in supporting vulnerable households and keeping children in school. Yet targeting is still largely based on household economic status recorded in administrative registries, leading to possible inclusion and exclusion errors. A multidimensional lens could refine this approach.

Looking beyond numbers, at a more moral economy, Indonesia’s founding vision was never about growth statistics alone. The Constitution speaks of social justice for all Indonesians. Indonesia’s first Vice President Mohammad Hatta’s idea of ekonomi kerakyatan or “people’s economy” placed people, not markets or aggregates, at the centre of development.

The Nusa Tenggara Timur tragedy was not only about income. It was about dignity, opportunity, and civil rights. A schoolbook is not a luxury good; it is an entry point into citizenship. When poverty is measured multidimensionally, development policy becomes less about thresholds and more about lived realities. It recognises that deprivation in education, health and basic needs is not peripheral. It is foundational to human flourishing.

Putu Geniki L Natih is head of the poverty and wellbeing research group at Institute for Research on Economics and Society – Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Indonesia, (LPEM FEB UI). She is also a research associate specialising in poverty measurement at the University of Oxford.

Rina Karlina, a policy analyst at Indonesia’s Ministry of Finance, co-authored this article. She specialises in well-being and human capital and is keen on research about economic demography for optimising and improving public welfare.

Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.