The Ministry of Village and Rural Development (PDTT) has launched the Village Past Learning Recognition (RPL Desa) program with the aim of providing opportunities to village officials, such as village heads, village apparatus, the chairman and members of the Village Consultative Body, BUMDes managers, village assistants, and other village activists, to pursue formal education up to the bachelor's, master's, and doctoral levels. Gus Menteri Desa Abdul Halim Iskandar officially inaugurated the program on March 3 and designated it as the Day of RPL Desa, with the intention of creating a platform for them to develop and empower the village.

The RPL Desa program acknowledges an individual's learning achievements from formal, non-formal, or informal education, as well as work experience at the undergraduate, master's, and doctoral levels. Through this program, BUMDes managers and village officials have the opportunity to receive educational scholarships like regular university students.

Apart from providing better educational opportunities, the RPL Desa program also contributes to enhancing the human resource quality in the village, including BUMDes managers and village officials, and strengthens community participation in village development. The program aims to recognize the learning outcomes from work experience or non-formal and informal education.

The RPL Desa policy of Kemendesa aligns with the government regulation stated in the Minister of Research, Technology, and Higher Education Regulation No. 26 of 2016 concerning the implementation of Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL). The designated universities by the Ministry of Village PDTT educate village officials and BUMDes managers to earn a bachelor's degree. The individual's experiences will be converted into semester credit units (SKS) in the curriculum, so they only need to complete the remaining courses to obtain a bachelor's degree.

For villagers interested in joining the RPL Desa program, several steps must be followed, including registering at the designated University, preparing at least a high school diploma or its equivalent (or taking a program to obtain an equivalent diploma), participating in the selection process conducted by the Ministry of Village PDTT along with the designated University, signing a commitment contract to serve at least two periods after graduation, and attending the RPL Desa orientation organized by the Ministry of Village PDTT.

The designated universities for RPL Desa are Universitas Negeri Surabaya (Unesa), Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta (UNY), Universitas Negeri Semarang (UNNES), Universitas Negeri Sebelas Maret Surakarta (UNS), and Universitas Brawijaya Malang (Unibraw).