Jakarta. Indonesia will begin providing free medical checkups for over 53 million students starting this month, according to Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin.

The program will target young students in elementary schools up to high schools. It will reach as many as 282,000 schools and Islamic boarding schools across the archipelago. Budi revealed that the students would not only get physical examinations, but would also have their mental health checked.

"Many mental health concerns do not get identified at a young age, even though the prevalence of such conditions is quite high among students,” Budi was quoted as saying in a statement on Wednesday. 

The government has already kicked off the health check drive for adults in early February.

“To date, as many as 11 million people have already had their health checks,” Budi said.

Indonesia has set a goal to provide these government-funded health checks for as many as 280 million people or equal to the size of their population. The government can conduct 200,000 screenings per day so far, according to the Health Ministry.

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