Indonesian pesantren-affiliated higher education: universal Islamic values to develop locally engaged but globally oriented multilingual graduates

ABSTRACT

Although Indonesian higher education institutions affiliated with pesantrens (Islamic boarding schools) have long been established and influenced the national education system, how these pesantren-affiliated higher education institutions (PaHEIs) may have contributed to the development of quality human resources in the predominantly Muslim country remains less known. This ethnography study explores the contribution of a PaHEI in Ponorogo, East Java, Indonesia, in preparing quality Indonesian human resources. Framed by ‘post-secular turn’ and universal Islamic values, document analysis, observations, and semi-structured interviews with top university management, faculty members, and students reveal how this institution has combined knowledge production and universal Islamic values to negotiate the negative stereotype of religious institutions by strategically merging secular and religious competencies as a complimentary dialogue to nurture multilingual and open-minded graduates with global orientation whilst intensively engaged in community volunteerism. The study uncovers some philosophical values and practices of pesantren in preparing quality human resources.

KEYWORDS:

• Community engagement
• multilingual graduates
• pesantren-affiliated HEIs
• post-secular turn
• universal Islamic values

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ahmad Bukhori Muslim

Ahmad Bukhori Muslim is an educational linguistics professor at Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia. His research interests include educational linguistics, language and identity, Islamic education, EFL, and global childhood. He has researched extensively in these areas and published them in some reputable peer-reviewed journals.

Jarman Arroisi

Jarman Arroisi is a senior lecturer at the department of Islamic theology and philosophy, Universitas Islam Darussalam, Ponorogo, East Java, Indonesia. His research interests include Islamic philosophy and education, Arabic language teaching, and Islamic psychology. His articles in these areas are published in some national journals.

Jariah Mohd Jan

Jariah Mohd Jan is an honorary professor in sociolinguistics, department of English Language, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, Universiti Malaya. Her research interests include pragmatics (sociopragmatics, (im)politeness theory, speech act theory, corpus-based pragmatics), sociolinguistics: Language, gender, sexuality and power issues, workplace discourse, new media and social networks, conversation analysis, and discourse analysis.

Ridho Ramazani

Ridlo Ramadhani is a teacher of Islamic education at Darul Falah Islamic School, Kedah, Malaysia. He earned his bachelor and master degrees from Universitas Islam Darussalam, East Java. While teaching at this Islamic school, he is interested in researching the influence of boarding school life on the mastery of English and Arabic.