Abstract
Madrasah is one of long established educational institutions in Indonesia. The sustainability of many madrasahs is strongly rooted from Muslim community who has high concern with education and religious moral character of young generation. Rising the significant number of every year, madrasahs gradually become more and more popular Islamic schools among the people of the country. There are more than 40 thousands madrasahs with at least 6 million Muslim children are educated in the institutions. Undoubtedly besides their impressive shifting on number, there are some interesting issues to discuss, particularly on the needs of their quality improvement. For the reason, this paper is presented to elaborate some attainments, problems, and expectations of madrasah in the latest and nearest year. Using SWOT analysis, this paper is also expected to share bountiful idea for improving the quality of madrasah in Indonesia.
1. A Glance at Madrasah History
The growth of educational system in Indonesia is not separated from the significant role of Islamic institutions. Even before independent of the country, Islamic educational institutions like pesantrens (Islamic boarding schools) have become pioneer of educational system of the country. They have been promoted earlier than the time of modern educational system introduced by Dutch colonialism. One of significant roles of pesantren appeared on the spirit of Muslim community of the country to modernized their educational system that influenced by the shifting of enlightenment in Asia and Africa (EMIS, 2001). Beside, the political will of colonialism in that time that rejected Islamic teaching in formal public education became another reason of why the role of pesantren became more and more popular in past decade of Indonesian education history (Mukhtar, 1999). In the same time, madrasas gradually grew and developed as the first formal and modern Islamic education in Indonesia in which both Islamic and secular curriculum was integrated.
In independence era, Indonesian government appreciated the important contribution of Islamic education toward character building of nation. Based on the appreciation, government made Islamic education as an integral curriculum in public school and put high concern on the quality of improvement of madrasah and pesantren. To support the Islamic institution, Government of Indonesia then found Ministry of Religious Affairs (MORA) to facilitate improvement of Islamic institutions like madrasah and Pesantren. Meanwhile, public schools remain to be administered by Ministry of National Education (MONE).
In New Order era, the policy of education was much more directed to the integration of Islamic education in national education system. Two of the importance policies in the time of New Era were to map madrasah structure and formalize them as public schools (Ma’arif, 1991). The policy was implemented after there was Joint Promissory Note in 1974 between three Ministries (ministry of National Education and Culture, Ministry of Domestic Affairs, and Ministry of Religious Affairs). Afterwards, the curriculum of madrasah in Indonesia was strongly different from what has been used in previous time. The curriculum had become double, Islamic as well as academic curriculum and the school has two employers namely MORA and MONE. In 1989, government of Indonesia then legitimated an Education Enactment that as juridical recognized madrasah as integrated part of national education. Since the time being, madrasah was so popular called as “the school by Islamic characteristics.”
The chance to improve quality for Islamic institution, including madrasah, was largely opened after reformation Era. The movement of political reformation in 1998 has successfully ended New Era regime after 32 years of its power. The movement then encourages people to make any changes in many aspect of life including in educational policy. Revitalization of madrasah came to be more significant after the issue of new Education Enactment Number 20, 2003. In this enactment madrasah is placed more explicit regarding its kind, stage, management, curriculum, teacher, and accessibility of students. Through the large opportunity for madrasah, Muslim community in Indonesia are expected to contribute skill and character building of the nation by creating more qualified Islamic education in the future.
2. Some Attainments of Madrasah
Today, madrasahs are fully administered by Directorate of Education for Madrasah, one of five directorates employed in MORA. In administering madrasah, the directorate classified madrasah into three categories i.e. Early Childhood Islamic Education, Basic Islamic Education, and High Islamic Education. Early Childhood Islamic Education (Raudatul and Bustanul Athfal) is recommended for children of 0-6 years old, Basic Islamic Education (Madrasah Ibtidaiyah, Madrasah Tsanawiyah) is for age of 7-15, and High Islamic Education (madrasah Aliyah) is for age of 16-18. The intervals of student age actually are the same as what are commonly deployed in public schools that are organized by Ministry of National Education.
Generally, there are many programs have been developed by Directorate of Education for Madrasah in the latest five years. The programs directly contribute to national education empowerment and to strengthen consciousness of learners. The directorate has improved all level and kind of Islamic education beginning from kindergarten to senior secondary school or high school education. Quantitatively, for instance, in period of 2004/2005, there are 5,654 (10%) of 52,658 Islamic Kindergarten (Raudatul/Bustanul Athfal) teachers have been appointed to be teachers of government worker. They are recruited from voluntary teachers who dedicated themselves in wide rage area of Indonesia. Beside, to support honorarium of madrasah teachers the directorate has allocate financial aids to 29,255 (62%) from 47,004 non-government teachers of madrasah in Indonesia. The aid is called as Teachers’ Honorarium Aid.
In religious landscape, the directorate also has take initiative to grow then values of religiosity, tolerance, respect others, and nation outlook among madrasah stakeholders. This role of directorate is much more tend to qualitative responsibility particularly to respond the challenge of today issue that religion often supposed become one of social triggers stimulating horizontal social conflict.
Another thing that has been supported by the directorate is accessibility of lower-middle economic family of students for attending education, particularly for basic education. The accessibility of education among students of madrasah can be described from the increase of school participation index every year. In 2004/2005, for example, the index increase 10.23% from the previous year (1003/2004). The faster growth of madrasah relates with the participation of Muslim community. It is found that of 39.309 madrasahs in 2003-2004, 91.6% of them are private madrasahs. One year later, the total of madrasah has significantly increased 2.4% (951 unit) so that the total number of them reach 40,260 unit. Meanwhile, the growth average of madrasahs in last five years (2000-2005) touch 3.1% per annual. The highest increase of madrasahs occurred in 2000-2001 that reached 1,730 madrasahs or 4.9% growth of total number of madrasahs in previous year
Based on demography data, it was identified that in 2005 the total number of the people in the age of 7-18 reaches 50,993,900 people. It includes 25,308,600 person of them are in the age of 7-12, 13,033,700 person are of 13-15 years old, and 12,651,600 person are of 16-18. Meanwhile, in the same time the total number of madrasah students of all kinds and grades of madrasah reach 6,027,239 students (madrasah ibtidaiyah = 3,152,939; madrasah tsanawiyah = 2,129,564, and madrasah aliyah = 744,736). About 81% (4,886,141) of them are students of private madrasah.
Relating to socio-economic of Indonesian people, madrasah held on important role in empowering poor and marginal people. The role at least can be identified from the existence of majority of madrasahs that located in village and suburb in which 80% of lower-middle economic people of Indonesia lives in the area. About 85% of students come from lower-middle economic family with the highest parents education is High School and their income $ 600 - $ 1,000 per annual. No wonder therefore if most of the students come from the family of farmer, factory labor, sailor, small retailer.
The attainments above related to the some policies of Directorate of Education for Madrasah. The directorate has attempted to synergize and accelerate quality of education in madrasah. Although the quality of madrasah has not yet achieved as expected, the directorate has often made some strategic program to encourage the stakeholders of madrasah to improve the quantity and quality. Some important programs that were initiated by the directorate included New Islamic School Development, One Roof Madrasah, Competence and Quality Improvement of Teachers, Madrasah Facility Aids, Private Madrasah Accreditation, Scholarship for Poor Madrasah Students, Life Skill Program, Vocational Program for Aliyah Students, Teachers Honorarium Aids, Operational Budget Aids for Madrasah, and some others programs. Those programs are expected to stimulate the improvement of quantity as well as quality of madrasahs.
3. Circumstance Analysis
Applying SWOT analysis, this part includes description of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of madrasahs. In broad line, the circumstance of madrasah is divided into two categories, internal and external. Internal aspect concerns with quality of madrasah that may include their input, process, and output. External aspect relate to some factors that supposed to influence directly or indirectly to the existence of madrasah. Strengths and weaknesses are categorized into internal aspect meanwhile opportunities and threats comes from external aspects.
a. Strengths (S)
The strengths of madrasah at least include two aspects namely their current faster growth than public schools and their orientation to help marginal community of people. Regarding the growth, in last two years, madrasahs have performed an interesting shift of their number from year to year. In 2004-2005, for example, the total of madrasahs in Indonesia reached 40,260 units. The number has increase 4,06% from the total of madrasah in previous year (EMIS, 2005). There some factors may cause the shifting such as better educational service, compulsory education program, community demand on Islamic education, and government support for Islamic education. The faster growth, in turn, effects the participation of education index in the institutions that is showed in gradual increase every year.
In another sides, the population of madrasah that spreads out in suburb, district, and village area make this educational institution are easy to access by remote people. Servicing educational need for lower income people, madrasahs are expected to contribute significant role for building nation and character of marginal community. Therefore, it is often said that madrasah is rooted from people initiative and sustained by community self-financing.
b. Weaknesses (W)
There are some weaknesses around the existence of madrasah. One of them is the weakness of students input. Relating to the quality of input of students, madrasah got new students in lower quality than those of public schools. For example, about 51% of madrasah ibtidaiyah have no pre-kindergarten or kindergarten background. It often then makes the pupil has lower capability in starting their learning for 3R (reading, writing, and arithmetic). In the same case, the majority of new students who entered madrasah tsanawiyah and madrasah aliyah also come from lower quality of education than who entered public schools. Nevertheless, for particular private madrasah in which the quality of it education is better than public school, they got better input of new students.
Another weakness is low qualification of teachers. Regarding the aspect, it is clear that majority of teachers of madrasah are not in good standard of qualification. It occurs especially for teachers of grade 7-12. Although the students-teachers ratio is almost reach the ideal comparison (15:1), this will not significantly influence of better educational service if there are many mismatch teachers and under living standard income. As cited in EMIS (2005), in 2005 there are about 30% teachers of madrasah who do not teach in his field (mismatch) and some of them are predicted lives on under living standard income. Most of under living income teachers are non official teachers like contracted teachers or part-time teachers. Besides, in madrasah still there are 4,444 (14.8%) unqualified teachers of madrasah ibtidaiyah, 1,090 (4.1%) teachers of madrasah tsanawiyah, and 451 (3.1%) teachers of madrasah aliyah.
The facility of madrasah also needs to be improved. Some of madrasah has no sufficient facility for conducting qualified teaching learning process. The facility can be a very elementary need like classroom. According to EMIS (2005), there 37% of all classroom used for teaching learning at madrasah in all grade are in bad condition. Besides, only 37% of madrasahs have school library and 19,6% of them (tsanawiyah and aliyah) have laboratory.
Almost all weaknesses are related with funding of madrasah that is not optimally support all kind of attempts. Madrasahs’ budget is lower than what public schools have. On the other hand, the ability and willingness of government to subside every necessities of madrasah is not as good as to public schools. The weakness of madrasahs’ budget in supporting their quality of education is also related to the status of madrasahs in which most of them are private madrasah. It means that madrasahs budget will be depending on the ability and the wiliness of Muslim community to donate their needs for teaching learning process.
c. Opportunities (O)
Noticing the external factors of madrasah, there are some opportunities that can be empowered for developing madrasah in five years later. First, after educational enactment number 20/2003 was legalized, the position of madrasah in national education system was revitalized. This juridical power has opened wider opportunity for madrasahs to improve their quality of education. The enactment also made good possibility of madrasah to get fairness in accepting subsidiary from national and local government. As noted in the enactment, madrasah is integrated educational system that is equal with public schools and administered by Ministry of Religious Affairs (MORA).
Second opportunity concerns with the population of Indonesia which more than 80% citizen are Muslim. The proportion can be a good chance for madrasahs to sustain their existence as community based education. In fact therefore, most of madrasah are founded by certain community on which their characteristic depend on Islamic organization like Nahdatul Ulama, Muham-madiyah, Persatuan Islam, Al-Irsyad, and so on. The support of Islamic organizations toward madrasah, then, made Islamic education become touchable by larger area of Muslim community.
d. Threats (T)
The threats of madrasah may include external factors that effect negatively to the existence of madrasah. One of the factors is secularity. Although secularity has positive effect on some areas of academic relief, the idea seems to be influence factor on duality of educational system in Indonesia. As occurred, there are two kinds of educational system administered in the country. One is secular school and another is religious school. Government of Indonesia tends to give much better attention on secular school than to Islamic schools so that the quality secular schools are relatively better than the quality of madrasah. Unless madrasah has competitive advantages to face the social reality, they will gradually marginalized from their society.
Another threat comes from global impact that systematically changes the image of city people toward madrasah. Often madrasah is perceived as second class education by city people who have no sufficient knowledge of Islamic education or knowledge of Islam. Such people easily adopt strange culture and they have no concern with the existence of madrasah. Therefore, madrasah is not so popular in central cities of Indonesia except for the high quality of private or public madrasah like Insan Cendikia, Darul Hikam, Darul Arqom, and MTs Malang. This public perception and global impact can be regarded as potential factor that make madrasahs do not exist in central cities.
The last threat is corruption and nepotism. The two kinds of social disease often occur in bureaucracy of education and in the other system of public service and politic. Although today the government of Indonesia is doing effort to eliminate the disease, the improper way of using money by personal interest sometimes occurs in many systems and, in the same time, the favoring relatives because of family rather than because of their abilities also may happend. Those problems, in turn, may effect the existance of madrasah in which moral entities are taught to students. Contradiction between ideal values and what really occurs in social realm not only is able to make student confuse about social values but also it negativelly effects the quality of madrasah.
4. Discussion
There are some internal and external factors that must be noticed for improving the quality of madrasah. Internal factors concern with input, process, and output of madrasah that may relate with students, teachers, management, curriculum, leadership, and school climate. Meanwhile external factor may relate to the condition of demography, socio-politic, competitiveness, and international dynamic. All of them have been covered in the explanation about strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threts.
For an integrated idea, let us see what madrasahs need to do in order to get better existence in the future.
First, to increase the quality of madrasahs, national and local government should rise the national budget for education sector, particularly for supporting quality improvement of madrasahs. The budget needs to rise at least twice of the present budget and should be allocated for supporting all kinds of madrasah necessities such as maintaining facilities, teaching-learning process, teachers and staffs salary, textbook provision, teachers training, curriculum and management development, student board activities, etc. The basic consideration of increasing national and local budget for education is the clausal of Education Enactment number 20/2003 that reveals 20% of national and local budget must be allocated for education sector. For this time being, the government of Indonesia has only shared 8% of the total national budget for education. It means that more than a half of claimed budget for education has not been fulfilled yet.
Second, to increase better input of basic Islamic aducation, Ministry of Religious Affairs (MORA) on behalf on Government of Indonesia needs set up an educational priority on early childhood education. It is necessary because one of the crucial problems in madrasahs is laid down on the input of basic Islamic education, particularly in madrasah ibtidaiyah. As previous description, most of new pupil of madrasah ibtidaiyah have no pre-K or Kindergarten experience. For this case, MORA needs to stimulate Muslim community to take role in early childhood education. A model of block-grant funding is likely more appropriate for implementation the idea. MORA may stimulate community by providing buildings or teaching and learning tools. In addition, the directorate of education for madrasah has to appoint gradually the teachers of pre-kindergarten and kindergarten level. Doing the attempts, the new pupils of elementary level are expected to have more better readiness to start their initial 3R (reading, writing, and arithmetic). It is suggested also that local governments are able to share their role in doing that.
Third, to overcome the low qualification of madrasah teachers, it is urgent to make a great effort of teacher certification. The certification can be concentrated first on low qualification teachers of basic education. The further effort can be gradually directed to the teachers of senior Islamic high school or madrasah aliyah. The way to do it can be organized by applying cluster certification based on each region of madrasah. The same as the other effort, in this attempt, local governments are strongly expected to take role in supporting financial need of the program. In addition, some qualified schools of teacher training may become the organizer of the program they have the authority for legalizing teachers’ certificate. It is hoped that by such attempt, the number of mismatch teachers of madrasah can be minimized.
Fourth, to encourage teachers in doing better job in or out classroom, there should be available of a long term in-service training for them. Old training models in which teachers were only engaged for 2-5 days in-house training seems not to be effective anymore. What teachers of madrasah really need now is the direct contribution on their teaching jobs, not just gave them some knowledge about teaching methods or about content of their field. It means that for each the 2-5 days in-house training should be continued by doing follow-up of the programs. Through this way, it is expected that quality of learning process in madrasah can be more integrated with long term programs of teachers training, not just a quick yielding programs like what frequently occurs today. It is important, therefore to implement some suggestions of learning quality improvement remarked by team of Madrasah Development Center (MDC)
Fifth, to increase multicultural and global perspective, Ministry of Religious Affairs (MORA) would be better to take initiative for designing a guideline of that perspective. That becomes one of important aspect of quality improvement of madrasah because today inclination of madrasah curriculum tend to lack of multicultural and global perspective. For this efforts, there are three possibility ways might be done; (1) incorporate multicultural and global perspective into some social studies lesson; (2) create formal curriculum of multicultural and global perspective in 2 hours separated lesson that is taught by certain teachers; (3) add formal extracurricular program that promote the diversity values of multicultural and global perspective. Involving such perspectives is important for making tolerance and broad minded students of madrasah, especially in appreciating diversity.
Last but not least, to open much more space for creative and innovative efforts of madrasah, it looks necessary to autonomize madrasah. As cited by Jalal & Supriadi (2001), the most crucial issues of madrasah related to its macro policy in which the institution of madrasah does not have the same wider mandate for doing its management as what public school has. Up to know, Ministry of Religious Affairs (MORA) administers madrasah through the macro policy models of centralization. Meanwhile, National Education Enactment and some macro policy of national education have often emphasized the important of school autonomy. Different macro policy on administering schools and madrasahs, then, effects on unexpected condition of madrasah when many of local governments do not pay better attention for madrasah in their area. The officials of local government frequently suppose madrasahs have been fully funded by national budget, yet, in fact, madrasahs have no sufficient subsidy from both sources.
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