This paper aims to investigate the influence the Program Keluarga Harapan (PKH) in Indonesia, on the academic performance of poor students in elementary and junior high school. The design of this impact assessment was based on Randomized Control Trial (RCT). Data was drawn from panel surveys conducted in six provinces in 2007, 2009 and 2013, covering approximately 3,360 villages. Evaluation of the PKH found that it has been able to increase net enrolment rate by 7.1% and the gross participation rate for junior high school students by 7.6%. Nonetheless, PKH has yet to yield significant increases in enrolment and gross participation rate at the primary school level. PKH significantly improves student attendance at the elementary level but, contrarily, has not shown a significant impact on junior high school attendance. PKH delivers significant results in terms of school examination achievement at the junior high school level for Bahasa Indonesia, Mathematics and English, as well as national examinations for Mathematics. However, the basic education in Indonesia is still unable to address issues of the teacher absenteeism (in both elementary and junior high schools) and the lack of quality educational facilities. © 2017, © 2017 The Author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.