Students Are Happier In Madrasah: The Results of Bayesian Analysis on Indonesian National Survey Data

Islamic education is an important part of the Indonesian education system. This is not only because Indonesia is the biggest Muslim country in the world, but also because Islamic education has a social, cultural, and political role in Indonesian society. Nevertheless, madrasahs in Indonesia face several challenges entrenched from financial constraints. This leads to adverse consequences such as restrictions in the provision of infrastructure, inadequate quality of teachers, and low academic achievement in the national exam. Furthermore, students in madrasahs have more burdens than those in regular schools; for instance, students in madrasahs have more subjects to study, longer school hours, and must adhere to stricter rules and conduct. The challenges faced by madrasah raise concerns regarding its effects on students’ subjective well-being. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate whether there is a difference in students’ happiness between those who attend madrasahs and the regular schools. The data collected were based on the results of face-to-face interviews with 1,299 secondary education students in Indonesia. The results of the Bayesian ANCOVA analysis showed that the best-fitting model for predicting students’ happiness contained type of school and wealth level as predictors. The results also showed that the happiness level of madrasah students was significantly higher than their counterparts in regular high school. The finding is noteworthy because students’ happiness in madrasah is higher than in the regular school, despite the lower level of wealth. The results further discussed the literature on religiosity and happiness in the context of adolescent education.