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The pesantren was an Islamic boarding school in which students lived and studied
with an Islamic scholar or kiai. The curriculum consisted mainly of the Islamic
sciences, chief among which were the study of the Quran and hadth as well as
Islamic jurisprudence, or fiqh. Teaching was based the study of classical texts known
as kitab kuning (yellow books) because of the yellow-tinted paper on which they
were traditionally printed. These texts formed a canon of Islamic scholarship
connected to the works of prominent Muslim scholars in the Middle East from the
tenth to the fifteenth centuries. Maintaining this corpus of classical Islamic traditions
of knowledge, as well as training new generations of Islamic scholars, were the
primary goals of pesantren education that characterized its traditionalist orientation.
Instruction was informal and lacked a tiered class structure or centrally controlled
curriculum. In the study of the classical texts students were generally free to study
any topic, with the learning progress determined individually.
Through a number of direct ordinances in the early decades of the twentieth century,
the colonial government sought to control the activities of the schools in the private
sector such as the pesantrens. The greater challenge to the pesantrens role as
providers of education, however, was the availability and economic appeal of
general, non-religious education in the Dutch schools that challenged the
pesantrens educational monopoly. Education in western schools was perceived by
many Indonesians as the best chance to obtain profitable employment and thus
advance socially and economically. The situation was further aggravated by another
development within the Indonesian Muslim community: the success of the Muslim
modernist movement and the creation of the madrasah.
Islamic modernism and the madrasah.
Contact with the Middle East increased in the second half of the eighteenth century
and introduced a larger number of Indonesian Muslims to the intellectual work and
reformist thought of Muslim modernist thinkers such as Jaml al-Dn al-Afghn
(18381897) and Muhammad Abduh (18491905). The modernist sentiment found
its institutional expression in the establishment of the Muhammadiyah in 1912 as the
worlds largest modernist Muslim mass organization. From its inception, a critical
area of concern was the modernization of Muslim education. Inspired by Muhammad
Abduhs educational reform in Egypt, the Muhammadiyah sought to bring Islamic
education in line with modern science and technology. Most importantly, the
Muhammadiyah championed a new educational institution, the madrasah, which
operated as a religious day school based on the European model. It combined
religious and secular education and offered students a graded class system,
formalized exams, and often state-recognized degrees. With the Muhammadiyahs
support the madrasah rapidly proliferated.
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Similar reforms initiated by the state helped integrate the pesantrens into the
national education system and ensured that their students received a general
education alongside their traditional religious studies. Although it remained possible
in most pesantrens for a student to focus solely on religious learning, many
pesantrens continued to incorporate general subjects into their curricula, while
others began to offer vocational instruction for their students. Still others, mostly
smaller pesantrens, modified their daily educational schedule to allow their students
to attend general schools outside the pesantren during the day. Still other schools,
especially larger pesantrens, integrated madrasah-type or general schools into their
educational programs. The granting of degree equivalency in the 1970s to private
religious schools that complied with government curricula and regulations
accelerated the incorporation of many madrasahs and pesantrens into Indonesias
national education system and allowed their students a more seamless transition
into the public sector upon graduation. On the tertiary educational level, this
integration has been facilitated by the expansion of the state system of Islamic
higher education.
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Universities, with faculties not only in the Islamic sciences but also in general
sciences and technology as well as social sciences.
Contemporary Trends.
By the early 1980s the state efforts under the New Order had resulted in a reduction,
if not the elimination, of the educational dualism characteristic of the colonial and
early independence periods. Large numbers of privately operated Islamic schools
collaborated with the state and had become integrated into the national system of
education. Among the reasons for the willingness of Muslim educators to go along
with these changes were socioeconomic pressures and increasing parental demand
brought on by shifting employment realities. Equally significant was the experience
of successful educational reform that had taken place in Islamic schools in the
nineteenth century, which had demonstrated the compatibility of religious and
general education.
Enrollment data since the late 1970s show patterns of vitality and growth in Islamic
schools. Such trends have been particularly notable in early secondary education.
Another significant development has been the increase of girls and young women
who receive their education in the Islamic sector of the national education system.
Although some madrasahs and pesantrens had established facilities for girls as
early as the 1910s, both institutions remained predominantly male-oriented until only
a few decades ago. Since then, female enrollment has risen steadily to the point that
currently girls are represented about equally with boys. On some school levels, such
as the upper secondary, their proportion exceeds that of their male counterparts.
Contrary to modernists expectations about the diminishing role of religious
education, Islamic schools have continued to thrive in Indonesia. In addition to the
growing number of Islamic schools with a mixed curriculum, the Islamic revival that
seized Indonesian society in the 1980s and 1990s has brought with it a resurgence
of educational institutions that teach an exclusively religious curriculum. The growing
interest in classical religious studies can be seen as reflecting larger trends toward
normative Islamic piety among the Muslim public, as well as an increase in the
demand for scholars trained in the classical Islamic sciences.
Since the transition to democratic rule that followed the end of President Suhartos
authoritarian New Order in 1998, Indonesias Islamic schools have come to play a
significant political role in the public debate over Islam and nation. A broad spectrum
of positions can be discerned on the place and function of Islamic education in
society and its relationship to the state.
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Bibliography
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