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Since the early development of Indonesia, the co-existence of Islamic and secular schools has been part of the national education scene. It began a long time before the country's independence. While they co-existed, Islamic schools were marginalized from the national education system until the early 1970s. This was because Islamic schools mainly belonged to private institutions and they were run for religious reasons. Although their number was less than the non-denominational schools, their role in educating young Indonesian people, especially in rural areas, was quite significant. The problem was that Islamic schools did not prepare students to be involved in the future development of the country as a modern nation.
Prior to the 1970s, Indonesian Islamic schools did not have a standardized educational system. While some of them included non-religious knowledge in their curricula, their main goals remained similar, i.e. to educate young Muslims to become religious leaders. When the New Order government tried to consolidate Indonesian schools under the Ministry of Education and Culture in the early 1970s, a certain amount of resistance came from the Islamic schools that had been supervised by the Ministry of Religious Affairs since 1946. As a solution, the government released a three-minister decree signed by the Ministries of Education, Religion and Internal Affairs. This decree is deemed as one of the turning points in the history of Indonesian Islamic schools. The most obvious aspect of this decree was the standardization of the Islamic education system including its curricula and school structures.
The main purpose of this paper is to examine the role of the Indonesian government, especially during the early New Order era, in the modernization of Indonesian Islamic schools. The focus of the discussion will be on the 1975 three-ministry decree and how this decree prompted the majority of Indonesian Islamic schools to modernize their institutions.
Generally, the term "Islamic school" in this paper refers to various types of Islamic schools in Indonesia ranging from conservative pesantren (a kind of Islamic seminary) to modern madrasah (religious day school). However, since madrasah is the most common feature of Islamic education in Indonesia, the words madrasah and Islamic school will be used interchangeably.
ISLAMIC EDUCATION BEFORE 1975
Originally, the modernization of Indonesian Islamic education has started as early...