Democratizing Indonesia through Education? Community Participation in Islamic Schooling

In 1998, Indonesia embarked on a journey to democracy. This journey involved the decentralization of education from 2002. The new school-based management (SBM) system required greater community and parental participation in schools—thereby, it was hoped, contributing to a deepening of democracy. Islamic schools (madrasah) also adopted this policy reform. Here we present the findings of our research into community participation in madrasah in Indonesia. One of our principle findings, and concerns, is the low level of parental and community participation in madrasah governance. Parents feel they have no place in school governance or in teaching and learning. There is a concentration of power in the hands of principals, teachers and school founders (of private madrasah). In general, participation by teachers in madrasah governance is increasing. Also, there are examples of excellent madrasah, where the principals devolve power and responsibility to other teachers, cooperate with parents and community leaders, model exemplary behaviour and institutionalize a clear vision. The decentralization of education in Indonesia has not uniformly empowered citizens to become more involved in Islamic schools. The question remains how to extrapolate from practices at excellent madrasah to effectively articulate community enthusiasm for Islamic schooling and school governance nationwide.