sekolah rakyat

Compound of sekolah (“school”) +‎ rakyat (“people”), from calque from Japanese 國民學校(こくみんがっこう) (kokumingakkō, literally “people school”), from calque of German Volksschule (“primary school”, literally “people-school”). Cognate of Korean 국민학교 (gungminhakgyo).

• IPA^(key): [səˈkolah ˈraʔjat̚]
• Hyphenation: sê‧ko‧lah‧rak‧yat

sekolah rakyat

1. (education, obsolete) elementary school (US), primary school (UK)

   Synonyms: (before 1941) sekolah rendah, (1941–5) sekolah rakyat, (since 1941) sekolah dasar

2. (education) a free boarding education program for children from poor and extremely poor families. [since 2025]

The term was used officially from 1941 to 13 March 1946 during Japanese colonial period, later replaced by the term sekolah dasar.

• “sekolah rakyat”, in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia [Great Dictionary of the Indonesian Language] (in Indonesian), Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016