The contestation of national and religious curricula in indonesia’s madrasas since the passage of the uuspn

Since Indonesia’s implementation of its national curriculum, the country’s madrasas have faced a significant challenge: conforming with the government’s regulations and laws. This has not been limited to observing these policies, but also implementing religious and national curricula simultaneously. Ultimately, these institutions’ administrators have chosen predominantly to employ a pesantren-based model, which is seen as the ideal solution to their ongoing struggles. This study seeks to understand how madrasas competitively implement both national and religious curricula, using a qualitative approach – observation and interviews – to understand how national and religious curricula are implemented. This study finds that, in response to national guidelines, madrasas require an institutional basis for proportionally and systematically integrating, synergising, and adopting both the national and religious curricula. It is hoped that, by employing a pesantren model and system, madrasas can optimally achieve the desired goal: to accommodate the national curriculum without abandoning the religious values that characterise madrasas.