The New Indonesia

Time to Say Good Bye

indonesiatoday — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 05:39:20 +0000

My 5-month internship with the Indonesian Department of Foreign Affairs (Deplu) has come to an end and it is time to look back on what I have learnt and experienced since October 2006. It was an incredibly fast-passing period full of lasting impressions, intercultural situations and fascinating encounters with interesting personalities. When I look back on my time with the Directorate of Public Diplomacy, I tend to overlook the rather insignificant difficulties I experienced. In order to give you a better impression of my internship with Deplu, I decided to publish my internship report on this blog. Don’t worry: I do not want you to read the whole report J Anyway, chapter 4 could be of interest to you…

Yesterday morning, I was summoned to Foreign Minister Dr. N. Hassan Wirajuda’s office by Mr. Umar Hadi, Director of Public Diplomacy. Impressively, the Foreign Minister gave me 30 minutes of his precious time, which was definitely one of the highlights of my work placement with the Department. During this semi-private audience, we – naturally, it was mainly him who talked. I did the active listening part – discussed my bachelor thesis, the importance of intercultural competence in the field of diplomacy, and the meaning of real dialogue between cultures and religions. My last, rather daring and – I have to admit – very stupid question was answered very diplomatically: I did get a long and detailed answer, but not the answer to my question. I asked him about the pros and cons of his position, and whether he still would like to become foreign minister, if he could choose again J

Well, if I had to choose again where to apply for my internship, the answer would definitely be DEPLU!

Internship Report

Indonesia’s Education System

indonesiatoday — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 11:29:29 +0000

It is high time to post a new article on my blog and to follow my mother’s request to write on Indonesia’s education system. I will not be able to go into all of her questions on Indonesian education though, as there is a clear lack of former-teachers-now-diplomats at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which means a scarcity of first hand information for me. My main sources of information on today’s issue were an interview with Mr. Umar, who was able to give me an overall view on the pros and cons of the education system on a national scale, and the various conversations I had with people from and specialists on Indonesia over the past years. And – last but not least – I experienced Indonesia’s education for myself when participating in the one-year scholarship programme Darmasiswa at the Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta in 2002. The following paragraphs are an attempt to give you an overview and a critical assessment on the current situation of Indonesia’s education system. If you have any questions on the topic, please do not hesitate to contact me. I will be happy to pepper Mr. Umar with your questions

The compulsory school attendance in Indonesia is nine years, but a relatively small percentage of the school children do not continue school after six years of primary school for various reasons. Especially in remote and rural areas of the archipelago, children often are taken from school by their parents to help with the housework or in the field. Other reasons for an early completion of school attendance could be the lack of money for buying books and school uniforms, or the lack of understanding that education is important for a child’s future. In many schools, poor families, who for example are unable to buy their children school books, are given support by richer families. Although school education in state institutions is for free, private schools with school fees are booming for mainly two reasons:

Firstly, besides the basic curriculum laid down by the central government, schools are allowed to enrich their curriculum by adding additional school subjects. The second largest Muslim organisation Muhammadiyah for example focuses mainly on religious studies and teaches its ideology in the organisation’s 6728 primary schools nationwide, in addition to the national curriculum. There are even schools that adapt foreign school systems and integrate them into the national curriculum. On condition that a family is able to pay the school fee, parents can choose from a wide range of different school ideologies for their child in accordance with their religion, culture or upbringing methods.

Secondly, many private schools, as for example Catholic schools, are known for the good quality of their education. This can originate from higher financial means for infrastructure and higher salaries for the teaching staff. In State schools, teachers often have to do one or more side jobs in order to earn enough for their living. Belonging to the group of civil servants, a teacher’s salary is rather small, and practically non-existent when his/her application for obtaining the status of a civil servant still is pending. Under these circumstances, the difficulty of ensuring a good quality of teaching is quite obvious. But – as Mr. Umar told me – the situation has been improving since Indonesia entered the process of decentralisation in 1999 and the local governments have become more autonomous. Due to this reformation process, the budget allocation is part of the local governments’ responsibility. Therefore, some local governments pay their teachers an extra salary in addition to the minimum wage paid by the Central government.

Mr. Umar identified three challenges Indonesia is facing in its effort to improve national education: In the first place, quantity and quality of teaching personnel has to be increased by raising wages, improving the formation and increasing requirements for teachers. Further, infrastructure has to be developed and improved. School buildings should be safe and clean in order to set a good example for the whole community as it used to be many years ago. By setting up libraries and laboratories in schools, children would be encouraged to read, explore and listen actively. Mr. Umar stressed that Indonesia as a nation is facing the challenge of establishing the habit of reading, in addition to its habit of speaking. Finally, the problem of geographical distance has to be solved. In Indonesia’s remote areas, schoolchildren’s way to school can be rather adventurous and long. Sometimes, the distance from home to school has even to be covered by boat. These difficult circumstances and the dependence on the weather are factors that keep children from going to school everyday. Using modern communication technology or the model of a “flying teacher” could be possible answers to that problem.

When being asked, whether Indonesia was financially able to invest in schools’ infrastructure, in a better formation of teachers or the solving of the distance-problem, Mr. Umar said that money was not a problem. Improving and developing Indonesia’s school system was not a resource issue, but rather a management issue. In other words, the biggest challenge in the process of developing Indonesia’s school system would not be the financing, but planning, executing and controlling the process.

Indonesia is facing serious problems and a real challenge in improving its education system, not least because of its huge territory. Implementing reforms in Jakarta’s schools should not be too difficult, but to achieve the reforms’ implementation in Indonesia’s remote areas could prove to be almost impossible!

Asian Net Chaos

indonesiatoday — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 06:35:09 +0000

With the 7.2 magnitude earthquake hitting southern Taiwan three days ago, the Asian part of the world became aware of how dependent human being had become on the Internet. Due to some damaged undersea cables, “hundreds of thousands were kept from surfing the Internet or calling overseas. E-mails piled up in accounts that couldn’t be opened. Stock traders couldn’t get updated information about market movements (The Jakarta Post, 29.12.06).” Although the outage has only been partial, the impacts on daily life are noticeable by every Internet user in the region. The repair work is expected to take up to a month. And as there is a current prohibition on local operators renting connections from international providers, Indonesians – and with them all the foreigners living and working in Indonesia – have to be prepared for the restricted Internet access to go on.

This restriction has made my work at the Directorate for Public Diplomacy more difficult or – let’s say – more complicated: Three days ago, one of the junior diplomats asked me to create some 100 multiple-choice questions on the Department of Foreign Affairs and related topics for a quiz on the Department’s new Website for Kids. In normal circumstances, such a task would not be too difficult to be carried, but this time, it meant a real challenge to me. The first step that should bring me toward the fulfilment of my task, was consulting Google in order to get some material for the questions. But Google was not working. I began to feel helpless and unable to fulfil my task, as Indonesian Wikipedia could not provide me with the needed information neither. Further, the material I obtained from English and German Wikipedia was useless to me since I did not know the vocabulary necessary to translate the information and formulate the questions in Indonesian. You guess it! My Online Dictionary Bahasa Indonesia – German on www.jot.de had left me in the lurch. Then, I realised how dependent I was on the Internet, and I started to remember the “ancient” sources of information, such as books or man. To keep it short: Things worked out in the end and I was able to hand the questions in on time.

In my last article, I mentioned Mr. Umar’s concept of the Cyclical Revolution of Information. This is the right time and place to clarify this concept: Before man was able to write on a portable medium, information was transferred directly person-to-person, mouth-to-mouth. Everybody was responsible for spreading the word. With the development of the alphabet, detachment of information and reporter took its course, and due to Gutenberg’s invention of the letterpress printing, information could be duplicated and spread all over the world easily. The invention of the telegraph and telephone permitted the information to bridge geographical distance faster, and by means of the telefax, reporter and information became attached again. Nowadays, in the era of Internet, Email and Blog, every person can become a reporter, independent of newspaper and television stations, and – closing the cycle – everybody is responsible for spreading the word again.

Of course, this concept is not working in the case of Internet breaking down. Newspapers, books, and human creativity and flexibility are still important and – in my opinion – this awareness and knowledge has to be imparted to today’s youngest generation that imbibes the Internet as the ultimate medium with it’s mother’s milk. And who knows, perhaps the Internet is not the final stage of the cycle.

Becoming a Journalist?

indonesiatoday — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 04:06:21 +0000

After two exhausting, but very satisfying days and events in Bandung at the beginning of December, I was given the task to write an article about one of those events organized by our Directorate for Public Diplomacy. I took me hours and the active help of my colleagues to finish that article, as it was required to be written in Indonesian. After some – or many – corrections, Mr. Umar sent the article to the Indonesian Newspaper Kompas, but as far as I know, it has not been published (yet). As the efforts of Mr. Umar, my colleagues and myself should not have been futile, I translated the article into English in order to publish it here. Blogs allow us to become reporters, independent of newspaper and television stations. Mr. Umar calls this phenomenon the Cyclical Revolution of Information, but more on this another time…
“Art as a bond between cultures
The Closing Ceremony of the “Indonesian Art & Culture Scholarship”, held on December 6, enchanted an audience of over 1100 amazed spectators at the SABUGA Center in Bandung. Among the audience was I, a Swiss citizen with strong relations to Indonesia, its culture and people.

The event “Indonesia Channel: Bridging Asia and the Pacific” consisted of performances by Indonesian artists, such as Nidji, Y2K Orchestra and Ikang Fauwzi, and the participants of the Indonesian Art & Culture Scholarship 2006. Watching the scholarship students performing what they had learnt for the last three months, touched me very much. In such a short period, the 40 participants from 18 Asian and Pacific countries were able to learn to dance, to paint Batik, to speak Indonesian, and to play Gamelan, the musical instruments of the traditional orchestra, reaching a – in my view – very high level of proficiency due to their effort. The member’s professionality, spirit and artistic souls produced an outstanding performance.

Three months ago, the scholarship participants arrived in Indonesia not yet realizing what was expecting them here. Apart from studying Indonesian Art in a very short period, they had to face other challenges, such as a language sounding strange to their ears, an environment they had not explored before, food that is different to their mothers’ cooking, and fellow occupants with different cultural backgrounds.

I am sure, they had not only felt excited before their departure to Indonesia, but had also worried about the challenges they had to face. One difficulty they had to deal with was the communicatin with Indonesians and the other participants. It turned out that communication between participants was not only challenging because of language differences, but also because of their different cultures. If a participant from Fiji says A, there is no guarantee that a participant from Thailand will understand A. It is even probable that the mentioned Thai participant will understand B and a participant from New Zealand will interprete the message as C.

It is very impressing that the scholarship participants could overcome the various differences they had to deal with in their get-together. What is the key for cross-cultural understanding? How could they successfully deal with this challenge and become best friends? “Art” is the answer. We do not need words for dancing together, we do not need to speak foreign languanges in order to play music together, we will not misunderstand each other when painting Batik together. Art is an effective and creative key and instrument for improving understanding between cultures as well as religions. Let us learn from the experience of the “Indonesian Art & Culture Scholarship 2006” participants and look for more creative ways to understand people with a culture, religion and worldview that is different to ours.

Stephanie Frei
Student of the Konstanz University, Germany
Currently doing an internship in Jakarta”

For those of you who speak Indonesian: http://indonesiatoday.files.wordpress.com/2006/12/artikel_dalam_bahasa_indonesia.doc

Management by Chaos

indonesiatoday — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 07:39:13 +0000

Last Friday, Mr. Umar asked me to accompany him to an event of the London School of Public Relations in South Jakarta, where he had to speak on the role of public diplomacy as a PR tool of the Indonesian state in front of about 300 senior students. On our way to the Centro Pub, where the event was held, we were talking about and evaluating the last three days which we had spent in Bandung organising and holding two events, that is the closing event for the Indonesian Art & Culture Scholarship 2006 “Indonesia Channel: Bridging Asia and the Pacific” and a Workshop on Public Diplomacy with the aim to elaborate the public diplomacy strategy 2007 - 2009. In the course of our discussion, I told Mr. Umar that I was amazed by the organisation skills of his employees who were able to conduct those two events very successfully, although – it seemed to me – everything had still been “kacau balau” (= very chaotic) only a week ago. This phenomenon was named “Management by Chaos” by Mr. Umar, and I was told to feed my blog with an article on the Indonesian way of management.
Goggling this term, you will find at least three blog articles with the same title as mine and a definition of the term, that is “Management by Chaos ist eine Führungsleitlinie. Die Leitlinie ist, dass keine Leitlinie existiert” (Management by Chaos is a leading guideline. This guideline means that there is no guideline.). But as my inquisitiveness had not been satisfied yet by the results from Google, I decided to have a chat on the topic with the co-organisers of the above mentioned events, my colleagues at the Directorate for Public Diplomacy. During an interesting and fruitful discussion, it turned out that Indonesians indeed have their own style of management – called “Management by Chaos” by Mr. Umar – and that there are two main factors for it to be chaotic.

Firstly, the steep hierarchy: Decisions are taken by superiors, and every detail has do be approved by the head of the department, in our case the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Employees often do not have the courage to take the initiative as this could have dire consequences in case of failure. It is well known, that superiors are busy. Therefore, their decisions often are made at the last-minute and have to be implemented at short-notice. This causes the need to revise existing planning over and over and to adapt programmes and schedules at the last-minute.
Secondly, the unawareness of planning as a useful tool: Most of the Indonesian people have not learnt how to work with plans or how to use planning in order to work more efficiently, but mostly the Indonesian way of work is about handling and solving the daily emerging problems on a daily basis. One of my discussion partners said that it is not “we are managing the problems”, but “the problems are managing us”. In his opinion, parents should teach their children how to make and follow plans, but at the same time, the asset of Indonesian creativity and spontaneity should be preserved and emphasised. He does not want the Indonesians to become robots who have lost their flexibility and strictly follow their planning, even if the circumstances have changed.
So, can “Management by Chaos” be seen as typical Indonesian? We do not think so, because this management style can be found in many countries and cultures all over the world. One of the diplomats, who has just returned from his posting in Peru, mentioned for example that “Management by Chaos” can also be found in the Peruvian culture, but their last-minute organisation is part of their preference to put work off until the pressure is big enough to make them work. Unlike Peruvians, Indonesians are not last-minute workers because of a lack of pressure, but because of a lack of clear and early instructions from their superiors. In order to transform the existing energy-consuming management by chaos into a creative and efficient management by chaos that integrates planning, the whole system would have to change. The discussion with my colleagues makes clear that our unit and its director, Mr. Umar, are ready for this change, but because they still have to collaborate with other units, and because Mr. Umar also have superiors, the needed and wished transformation can not be implemented. In order to cope with this difficulty, to organise successful events, and to conduct creative public diplomacy, Mr. Umar’s employee have to be highly competent and capable of multiple-tasking. I wonder what this unit is going to be like when all these people are gone.
In addition to the time-factor, there are other factors causing chaotic management in state institutions, namely the capacity-factor and the feedback-factor.
1. The capacity-factor: If the public diplomacy events were more evenly scheduled over the year, there would be more capacity for every single event. A clearer time-table and lesser ideas that have to be realised immediately would enable the project officers to work more efficiently and effectively. Though, this does not conclusively mean lesser creativity.
2. The feedback-factor: There is a clear lack of regular meetings and feedback-sessions, which makes collaboration and a sustainable learning-process more difficult. Often, the allocation of responsibility is unclear and confusing causing inefficiency and a chaos that could be prevented easily, e.g. by institutionalising a communication channel, that works in both directions, between the superior and his employees.
“Management by Chaos” holds advantages and disadvantages, and shows many similarities to crisis management. It will be a real challenge for the Department for Foreign Affairs to preserve the positive sides and eliminate the negative sides of this management style. Changing the systems does not have to be an impossible task, but it will take time, and – in my opinion – has to be implemented mainly top-down. Please let me know your opinion on the content of this article. I look forward to learning more about the Indonesian culture.

Becoming a speechwriter?

indonesiatoday — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 12:04:15 +0000

Since I posted the last article on this blog 20 days ago, I have been busy – among other things – with the writing of a keynote speech for the Indonesian Minister for Foreign Affairs H.E. Dr. N. Hassan Wirajuda on the topic of “Challenging Stereotypes in Europe and the Islamic World: Working Together for Constructive Policies and Partnerships”. I started my researches on the above mentioned subject right after I had finished my article on “Indonesia’s pluralistic Islam”. After five days of preparation, I felt ready to write a first draft of the speech, which took me the whole day. In the course of the following two weeks, Mr. Umar and some other people added their various ideas, in other words they explained them to me and ask me to insert them. At the end of this brainstorming process, I felt quite satisfied with the result.
But the end of the brainstorming process did not mean the speech was finished yet. Far from it! From the 12^th floor – where I work –, the speech was sent to Mr. Jamil, the Minister’s speechwriter, on the 3^rd floor. There, it underwent a “cosmetic treatment“ as Mr. Jamil had to change the vocabulary in order to make the speech suitable for “diplomatic ears”. Naturally, I was very curious whether the final product still resembled the speech I had written. Is is rather interesting to compare the two versions, namely the version before and the version after Mr. Jamil and the Minister for Foreign Affairs had laid their hands on the speech and added their corrections and ideas. Please have fun with the comparison of the two versions! J

Link to: My Draft

Link to: Final Version

Indonesia’s pluralistic Islam

indonesiatoday — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 04:25:08 +0000

Since my first visit to Indonesia in summer 2002, I have met many Indonesian Muslims. Most of them followed a moderate Islam, some of them were more devout muslims, and one of them – her name is Tika – became my best friend over the years. When I found out that she belonged to the ethnic minority of the Mingangkabau, the biggest still existing matriarchal ethnic group in the world, I was very fascinated. Due to her explanations about her culture and my studies at Konstanz University of Applied Sciences, I learnt a lot about the Minangkabaus in theory. But last week, during the Lebaran holidays (Lebaran = End of Ramadhan), I finally got the opportunity to learn more about this special ethnic group in practice, as Tika invited me to spend my holidays with her family in Payakumbuh, a typical Minangkabau town in West Sumatra.
It was not only the first time for me to go to the Minangkabau region, but also the first time to find myself in a purely islamic region (except of the tiny minority of mainly Chinese Christians living there). West Sumatra has been known as a Muslim area practising a “purer” Islam than the Javanese Muslims, but rejecting a radical Islam. Still it can be observed that, from time to time, fundamentalist groups have been trying to “islamise” the moderate Minangkabaus, as for example during the Padri War from 1821 to 1837, when Islam was preached forcibly among the Minangkabaus. Another, more recent example could be the obligation for public officials and pupils to wear the headscarf at their workplace or school. Most of the people I met in Payakumbuh do not agree with this regulation, as wearing the headscarf should be a voluntary action for every Muslim woman. Although this is a much discussed hot topic among the West Sumatraneses and they are worrying about the recent developments to some extent, they have not protested against this “islamisation” until know.
I discovered the following quotation in the Internet during my researches about Islam and the Minangkabaus: “Most people who learn that the Minangkabau is a matriarchal culture, usually get confused when they learn that the Minangkabau people are among the stronger upholders of Islam, a religion that to most people seems to marginalize women.” That is exactly what happened to me, and I asked several people in Payakumbuh to explain the combination of Islam and the Minangkabau Adat (Adat = local customs and conventions, originating from the Minangkabau culture) to me. Mostly, I received the answer, that Islam and Adat are fitting very well. One of Tika’s aunt told me for example, that in her and her husband’s home, her position was subordinated to her husband’s. But when at her parent’s home, it was vice versa, and her opinions in critical questions had to be listend to and accepted. I would like to cite the Anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday, in order to explain the togetherness of Islam and Adat: “The Minangkabau love to tell the story about how adat and Islam achieved an accommodation. The story often begins with a proverb: Adat came down; Islam came up. According to the story, adat originated in the interior mountainous heartland of Minangkabau culture long ago, some say before the time of Christ, and went down to the coast. Islam came much later, brought by traders to the coastal regions, sometime between the 14th and 16th centuries, and went up to the mountains. The two formed an alliance and achieved an accommodation in order to fight Islamism imported from Mecca by a few well-known Islamic officials seeking to purge Minangkabau culture of adat customs such as matrilineal descent. The struggle brought on the Padri war in the late l8th and early l9th centuries. The moderate wing won the struggle with the help of the Dutch. The accommodation involved the purging of some adat practices (like gambling) and the strengthening of others. Matrilineal descent, the linchpin of adat Minangkabau, was placed in the most sacred of adat categories on a par with Islam.” Nowadays, Islam is so deeply rooted in the Minangkabau culture that being un-Islamic is equal to being un-Minang to them.

Why did I entitle this article “Indonesia’s Pluralistic Islam”? When in Payakumbuh, Tika’s family was celebrating Lebaran, the end of the fasting month. The Indonesian government, the religious leaders and the two biggest Muslim organisations Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama did not agree whether the fasting month ended on Monday or Tuesday, as there are different ways to identify the date of Lebaran. Tika’s family celebrated Lebaran on Tuesday, but part of the population in Payakumbuh ended fasting on Sunday night and paid the Lebaran visit to Tika’s home on Monday. Although half of the population was already allowed to eat on Monday and the other half was still fasting, this was not causing any problems. Not beeing the only person observing this fact, the topic became a Headline in The Jakarta Post on 26 October 2006 (http://www.thejakartapost.com/Archives/ArchivesDet2.asp?FileID=20061026.A05). Have a look at this article which states that the Indonesian society has learned to live with its differences “whether they are a matter of race, ethnicity, religion, language or gender. Pluralism is in our blood.” The Muslim world could and should learn a lot from Indonesia in this respect!

Interfaith Workshop on Disaster

indonesiatoday — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 08:55:30 +0000

In today’s edition of The Jakarta Post, the reader’s eye is caught by the headline “Disaster in the classroom saves lives” (The Jakarta Post, 17 October 2006, p. 9), which evokes associations of the latest amok run at a US-school in Pennsylvania in beginning of October 2006. But the article’s message is a different one, namely that “teaching safety precautions and natural disaster signs to school children helps them play an important role in helping the public”. Using two examples of Tsunami-2004-incidents when children could save many lives due to what they had learnt about natural disasters at school and from their families, the writer points out, that incorporating disaster mitigation classes into schools curriculum could be eminent for the people living in natural disaster hit Indonesia.
This article reminds me of a discussion Mr. Umar and I were having two weeks ago when visiting Yogyakarta, where the traces of destruction from the earthquake in May 2006 are still visible. Mr. Umar told me, that the newly established Jogja Center for Religious and Cultural Cooperation was going to conduct an Interfaith Workshop on Disaster for religious leaders in January 2007. This workshop aims to teach the religious leaders various reasons for natural disaster in Indonesia from a scientific viewpoint. Why is this necessary? Many people in Yogyakarta think that the earthquake was God’s will, meant as a punishment, and blame Him. Because of this resignedness people won’t take any actions in order to prepare themselves for coming natural disasters. By means of this workshop, people should learn that an earthquake for example firstly is a natural EVENT, something that happens because of the law of nature. And these natural EVENTS become natural DISASTERS if people aren’t prepared for them to happen. Hopefully, the participating religious leaders can reach their community, share their new knowledge about natural events and encourage them to take precautious actions for the future, which could be life-saving in a high-risk country like Indonesia. In my opinion, this workshop is an innovative project and could effectivley broaden the worldview of lesser educated people in Indonesia. Still there are some questions that need to be discussed and elaborated:

Does the workshop takes in account the sustainability of the knowledge-transfer? The above mentioned article cites Harkunti P. Rahayu from the Bandung Institue of Technology’s Disaster Mitigation
Center with the following words: “It’s really frustrating. People seem to suffer from short term memory loss over disasters.”
As far as I know, it is planned to invite a foreign specialist for this workshop. Will he or she be capable of transferring the message in a way which is understandable for the participants? Does he or she have to consider cultural learning aspects?

Will there be an effective promotion and implementation of the newly gained knowledge at grassroots level? Should this process be surveyed? If yes, could a feedback-meeting of the workshop participants be a possible instrument?

What are you thinking about this Workshop on Disaster?

Education system as a means for integration: Indonesia’s Pesantren

indonesiatoday — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 03:57:33 +0000

In Indonesia there are over 10’000 Islamic Boarding Schools, called Pesantren, educating children from Kindergarten to High School. Most of the Pesantren are teaching a moderate Islam. It is estimated that as little as five out of Indonesia’s 10,000 Pesantren are associated with Jemaah Islamiyah, the radical Jihad-Organization. Besides studying Arabic, Koranic literature, Islamic Law etc., students follow a curriculum approved by the state and often learn very practical skills in addition to their religious training. One reason for the big popularity of the Pesantren in Indonesia are the high school fees for public or other private schools. The tuition for sending their child to a Pesantren are lower than if their child was sent to the public school.
After having finished the education in the Pesantren, the students normally return to their villages in order to become a religious teacher supported by the village community. Mr. Umar told me that modern Pesantren are beginning to change their curriculum with the aim to teach their students a profession, so that after having gone back to their villages they will be more independent in earning their life. By giving them an independent income and more stability for their lives, the likelihood for graduated Pesantren student to join an extremist group diminishes. And by improving the education, more students will be able to enter University.
A few days ago, I visited the Krapyak Pesantren in Yogyakarta which was founded in 1910. The Krapyak Pesantren is in the process of establishing the Alma Ata School of Health Sciences with the aim to provide the students with a higher education. This will be the first degree education program in Krapyak, it offers two study programs, namely midwifery and nursing. I was impressed by the following core values of Krapyak Pesantren: Moderate attitude, tolerant attitude, balancing attitude in serving for a harmonious relationship among human beings and between God and man.

Moderation is a very important element in the education of the coming muslim generation in Indonesia, therefore the Pesantren Leaders are invited by the Indonesian government to participate in seminars in order to learn more about other religions and cultures. Mr. Umar already offered me to spend one or two weeks of my internship with Deplu at the Department for Religion where these seminars are held. I am looking forward to this special experience.

If interested, have a look at this article: Who’s radicalizing
Indonesia’s schools? By Dan Murphy: http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0916/p07s01-woap.html