Negotiating Between Equity and the Market
M. Falikul Isbah and Zulfa Sakhiyya
8.4 Mainstreaming Pesantren in National Education
Four significant factors contributed to the efforts of mainstreaming pesantren in national education in Indonesia: the deepening Islamization especially among the emerging Muslim middle class, the centering of Islam in post-reformasi political configuration, “ayo mondok” movement, stronger state accommodation and endorse- ment, and the more intense circulation of information about pesantren and its living culture in online media. First, the rising trend of deepening Islamization or Islamic conservatism (Banker, 2019; Rakhmani, 2016, 2019; van Bruinessen, 2013) has impacted not only on the perception of the roles of religion in public life, including religion-based education (Pohl, 2006), but also on the growing influence of Islam upon the social, economic and political spheres of the country. Pesantren, which used to be considered second-class education with myriad problems such as substandard, underfunded, and low quality, has now gained popularity.
Based on a study in the 1960s, a Dutch Anthropologist B. J. Boland quoted an anecdote from one of his informants to represent the general tendency of the educational preference of Indonesian Muslim parents at that time:
Some pious villagers still send their children to an old-fashioned pesantren. The head of the pesantren sends their children to a modern madrasa. The teachers there have their children attend a state secondary school in order to continue at an Islamic university. The professors at an Islamic university try to get a place for their children at a state university. And the professors at a state university send their children to study –abroad. (Boland, 1982, p. 123) Such general tendencies are no longer valid today given the remarkable growth of pesantren numbers as well as their students today. Referring to various previous studies and statistical data from the Ministry of Religious Affairs, Isbah (2020, p. 93) notes an unprecedented increase after the regime change in 1998. Our interviews with some pesantren leaders also strengthen this argument. A female pesantren leader in Pati, Central Java pointed out some new developments and trends. Firstly, in the 1990s she saw many pesantren-educated parents, especially those who live in urban areas, not sending their children to pesantren. Instead, they sent them to secular schools expecting easier entry to secular universities or the urban labor market. Today, this trend has reversed. She received many students from parents who graduated from her pesantren some twenty years ago and most of them live in urban areas and work in middle-upper professional jobs. She viewed a changing perception among santri people in urban areas about pesantren education. Second, her pesantren received more and more students from parents who never studied in pesantren. Some scholars (e.g. Fealy, 2008; Hasan, 2009) have pointed out the deepening Islamization among Indonesians, and perhaps this changing educational preference is a further expression of it (Table 8.1).
142 M. F. Isbah and Z. Sakhiyya Table 8.1 Number of
pesantren and pupils (1977–2016)
Year Number of pesantren Number of pupils
1977 4,195 677,384
1997 9,388 1,770,760
2006–2007 17,506 3,289,141
2011–2012 27,230 3,759,198
2016 28,194 4,290,262
Source Cited from Isbah (2020, p. 93)
Secondly, there has been a systematic promotion of pesantren education over the last decade. Nahdlatul Ulama, the largest Muslim organization has a division named Rabitah Ma’ahid al Islamiyah (RMI, pesantren association) which demonstrated continual creative campaigns through public events and social media postings under the hashtag “Ayo Mondok”, literally means “Let’s Study at Pondok (pesantren)”.
The hashtag was initially introduced by the Central Java and East Java region of RMI before 2010. The key person behind this campaign was Abdul Ghoffar Rozin, the Central Java regional leader of RMI and Lukman Harist Dimyathi who lead a prominent pesantren in Pacitan, East Java. The background behind the campaign was their concern that many pesantren were unable to maintain their sustainability due to low student enrollment or the lack of cadres for leadership. Another trigger was the appearance of new pesantren which teaches and promotes exclusive, not moderate Islam. The other was the striking spread of Islamic radicalism among young people who are mostly educated in secular schools (interview with Tutik Nurul Jannah, the leader of Pesanten Maslakul Huda, Pati, 1 August 2020). The campaign was seen as successful in promoting pesantren education to wider public especially parents who do not have a background of pesantren education. The “Ayo Mondok” campaign was then brought to national coverage when Abdul Ghoffar Rozin was appointed as the chairman of the central leadership of RMI in 2010, and made the magnitude of the campaign broader.
The winning of Joko Widodo in the 2014 presidential election and the broader political accommodation of Nahdlatul Ulama’s political interest in his administra- tion created a more spacious opportunity and funding for the promotion and support for pesantren education, especially those which are affiliated to Nahdlatul Ulama (Fealy, 2018). For example, in 2015 President Joko Widodo set the 22nd of October as the National Santri Day (Akuntono, 2015). This decision was a political gesture of state recognition of a historic moment in 22nd of October 1945 when pesantren leaders and their students (santri) fought against a military aggression of the Allies and the Dutch in Surabaya. The event was an important symbol of kyai and santri’s contribution to the defending of the country’s independence. Today, this recognition provides a symbolic political capital for Nahdlatul Ulama and the pesantren world for playing their roles in the Indonesian public life. Then, from 2016 onward RMI was given funding from the Ministry of Youth and Sport to organize Liga Santri Nusantara, a national soccer championship for pesantren students. The event was widely covered by mass media and the final game was broadcasted by national TV.
8 Pesantren in Contemporary Indonesia: Negotiating Between Equity … 143 President Joko Widodo himself attended some public events held by RMI (“Hadiri Festival Shalawat”, 2018; Pradigdo, 2017). Ultimately, in 2019 the president released Law Number 18 on pesantren which provides a more solid foundation for state recog- nition and funding support to pesantren (Soebahar, 2019; Ucu, 2019). However, there were some objections from some Muslim organizations other than Nahdlatul Ulama which viewed that the definition of pesantren in the law is too narrow, reflecting only the characteristics of pesantren affiliated to Nahdlatul Ulama, like the use of kitab kuning (classic books on Islamic sciences) as a standard feature of pesantren.
In fact, pesantren affiliated to modernist Islamic organization like Muhammadiyah, Persatuan Islam, and Hidayatullah do not use kitab kuning, but Arabic book from a more contemporary scholarship instead (Permana, 2019). In short, during the Joko Widodo presidency, pesantren education, especially those which are affiliated to Nahdlatul Ulama, is gaining a tremendous endorsement from the country’s political structure.
The other factor contributing to the circulation of information about pesantren, kyai, and their living tradition in the public sphere is some online media managed by pesantren graduates. NU online (www.nu.or.id), alif.id, bincangsyariah.com are among the current top list of online Islamic media in Indonesia (“100 Situs Islam di Indonesia”, 2020). This is a “counter attack” to the previous domination of Islamic online media by more conservative and puritan Islamic media like eramuslim.com, hidayatullah.com, and so forth from the early 2000s.
Along with the broader access to the Internet-based media, what are the impacts of this change to people’s perception and attitude toward pesantren education? Some pesantren leaders admitted that they witnessed a changing mode of people deciding to send their children to pesantren. In the past, parents chose pesantren for their children based on their own experience, information from relatives and friends, or their closed social circles. Today, many parents, even from faraway places, may make the decision based on information they found on the Internet. Tutik Nurul Jannah, a pesantren leader in Pati, said that she received some students from Pekanbaru, Riau after the parents read her Facebook post. In contemporary Indonesia, many pesantren leaders are active on social media such as Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube sharing their pesantren activities and the regular study activities there. For example, a widely respected pesantren leader Kyai Mushofa Bisri of Rembang broadcast his regular sermon during the month of Ramadlan. Thousands of people watch him on Facebook or Youtube from wherever they live. Such postings may appeal to people who do not have educational experience in pesantren, then intend to send their children to pesantren. Those who have pesantren experience have an opportunity to recollect and maintain the living tradition they acquired during their past study through virtual exposure.
In summary, Indonesian pesantren is in its emerging phase over the last decade due to a number of simultaneous factors: the increasing affluent Muslim middle class especially in urban and metropolitan area, the stronger support and endorsement by the state as a result of political engagement by NU elites and politicians from Islamic
144 M. F. Isbah and Z. Sakhiyya parties, and the more intense circulation of information about pesantren and its living culture in public spheres especially through social media. All of those have leveled up the social standing of pesantren before the Indonesian public, in a stark contrast to the public perception of pesantren two or three decades ago.