Last updated on January 2, 2019
Indonesia has a huge number of Islamic schools that operate beyond the direct jurisdiction of the Department of National Education (Departemen Pendidikan Nasional). Many of them are traditional, independent, community schools supported and staffed by local people. Tuition in them varies wildly across the country but usually centres on learning Arabic, reading the Koran and studying Islamic theology, law, history and culture. Elementary-level Koranic schools are called madrasah and more advanced schools are called pesantren (also pondok schools and pondok pesantren).Pesantren schools are usually under the leadership of a respected teacher (in Java, called a kiai or kyai) who has a deep knowledge of Islam. Most offer boarding facilities for their students. Traditionally, and to a large extent even today, pesantren students studied books of religious commentary in Arabic known as “yellow books” (kitab kuning). The style of study was – and mostly still is – very traditional, involving rote learning of texts and unquestioning deference to the authority of the kiai.
There is also an Islamic school system that stands somewhere between traditional Koranic schools and state-funded secular schools. These schools offer explicitly Islamic education but they are also state schools in the sense that they are funded and administered by the government’s Department of Religion (Departemen Agama) rather than the Departemen Pendidikan Nasional. Nevertheless, they implement a curriculum similar to that of regular state (negeri) and private (swasta) schools by including non-religious subjects like mathematics, science and English. In this system the Madrasah Ibtidaiyah are elementary-level schools equivalent to SD schools, the Madrasah Tsanawiyah operate at the SMP level and the Madrasah Aliyah operate at the SMA level.
Religious studies are slowly becoming increasingly important in state and private schools in which the curriculum is regulated by the Departemen Pendidikan Nasional, and conversely, “secular” studies are becoming increasingly important in Islamic schools that are regulated by the Departemen Agama. Students can, and do, move between regular schools – both negeri andswasta – and the Islamic system.