The Sustainability of Islamic Boarding Schools in the Era of Modernization and Globalization

Abstract

The objective of this study is to determine the strategy of the classical Islamic boarding school in maintaining its existence amid the rapid development of the globalization era and also to find out the curriculum formulations used to equip students to face the modernization era. This research is qualitative, using the deductive-interpretive analysis method, with a sociological-phenomenological approach. The research was conducted at the classic Islamic boarding school Tremas, Pacitan, East Java. The research was conducted at the Tremas classical Islamic boarding school, Pacitan, East Java, which is an open institution for modernization and globalization. The results of the study indicate that the pesantren’s strategy to maintain its existence and sustainability in the modernization era is as follows. (1) Optimizing the management function of Islamic boarding schools by distributing authority in five aspects, namely ma’hadiyah, ma’arif majlis, anasyathoth, finance, and secretariat. (2) Organizing formal education starting from Kindergarten, Madrasah Tsanawiyah (middle-level school), Madrasah Aliyah (high school), Vocational High School, and Ma’had Aly. (3) Carrying out various non-formal and informal educational activities as a characteristic of salafiyah education. (4) Establishing vocational institutions to equip students with skills. (5) Founding Ma’had Aly as an effort to produce a cadre of scholars. As for the curriculum, this Islamic boarding school assembled its curriculum independently based on the vision and mission of Pondok Tremas, absorbed the aspirations of the community, and adopted some curriculum content from the Ministry of Religion and the Education Office. This curriculum contained several characteristics: (1) implanting faith, morality and enriching Islamic scholarship through the study of kitab kuning. (2) Arabic strengthening. (3) Pesantren adaptation by adding general science lessons. (4) equipping students with skills education. (5) enriching the repertoire of Islamic thought by studying the works of ulama ‘Nusantara.