TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Are homeschoolers prone to radicalism? Study highlights Salafism, exclusivity
Indonesia has seen numerous terror attacks in the past decades, but the church bombings in Surabaya, East Java, last year marked the first time in the country that a whole family, including four children, were involved in carrying out an attack
Change Size
I
span>Indonesia has seen numerous terror attacks in the past decades, but the church bombings in Surabaya, East Java, last year marked the first time in the country that a whole family, including four children, were involved in carrying out an attack.
Information surrounding the family soon filled the news, including reports that the parents had told other people that they had homeschooled their children. Police, however, refused to use the term homeschooling, insisting instead that the children had only received indoctrination from their parents at home.
The revelation prompted researchers at the Center for the Study of Islam and Society (PPIM) of the Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN) to assess the vulnerability of homeschooled students to radicalism.
A qualitative and in-depth study was carried out by the researchers between August and September this year on 53 homeschooling providers in six cities; Surabaya, Greater Jakarta, Bandung in West Java, Surakarta in Central Java, Padang in West Sumatra and Makassar in South Sulawesi.
It found that 10 of those homeschooling institutions were based on “Islamic Salafism and exclusive” teachings, with the researchers arguing that the students receiving this type of homeschooling were more vulnerable to radicalism given the lack of engagement with other communities.
The researchers said the homeschooling methods followed practices from the Prophet Muhammad’s era, regarded by the teaching providers as an exemplary era, when there were no formal schools and mothers were believed to be the first educators at home. These homeschooling methods also focused on tahfidz or memorizing the Quran, while the teachers, including parents and tutors, did not expose the students to other communities and people of other religions.
Also highlighted by the study was the lack, or the absence for some, of guidance from regional administrations even though the education provided should be regulated under the Education and Culture Ministerial Regulation (Permendikbud) No. 129/2014 on homeschooling.
“The regulation isn’t implemented. When asked by researchers, local education agencies say they don’t have any homeschooling entities in their area and even asked researchers to help collect data on them. It’s clear that the entities haven’t registered with the agencies, so there isn’t any monitoring or evaluation from the agencies on homeschooling in the area,” the study’s coordinator, Arief Subhan, said during its launch in Jakarta on Thursday.
The 2014 Permendikbud acknowledges three kinds of homeschooling; first is individual, which is family oriented, the second is group where several kids gather together for a study session, and the last is community, in which kids basically attend a special school with different school hours and teaching methods than those of regular schools.
All are required to register with local education agencies and submit at least their lesson plans. Community homeschooling specifically is also required to obtain a permit from the agency so that the students can be registered in the Education and Culture Ministry’s basic data center information (Dapodik), allowing them to take the requisite national examinations.
The 2014 Permendikbud requires the homeschooling entities to adopt the national curriculum. This means that they must teach at least four subjects; state ideology Pancasila, civic education and Indonesian language and religious studies.
Researchers, however, found that the Salafism-oriented homeschooling did not fully implement the curriculum. Some also did not perform flag-raising ceremonies or teach students national songs, which the researchers regarded as a form of rejection of the state.
Arief said the problem was that only a small number of the Salafism-oriented homeschooling entities had registered with local agencies. Aside from Bandung and Surakarta, no other administrations mentioned homeschooling in their regional regulations, thus there was no further technical guidance for the agencies to keep tabs on homeschooling activities in their area.
“This leaves them vulnerable [to radicalism] because they tend to be inward looking through spiral encapsulation. Why are these subjects important? Because the state is also a stakeholder in children’s education and if it’s not given a balanced share in it, then students will be vulnerable to radical religious teachings,” he said.
Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) member Rita Pranawati said the government needed to ensure children’s rights to education regardless of whether they participated in formal or nonformal education.
“The local administrations’ conditions vary. The sensitivity to homeschooling supervision needs to be developed. […] It’s the obligation of the state to ensure that every child is recorded in the database no matter what their choice of education is,” Rita said in the discussion.
Secretary-general of the Homeschooling and Alternative Education Association (Asah Pena), Anastasia Rima, questioned the “radicalism” terminology used in the study, saying for example that it was only normal for individual homeschooling not to perform flag-raising ceremonies, and not for ideological reasons.
She argued that even students in formal schools would be vulnerable to radicalism.
According to Anastasia, Asah Pena had about 10,000 members across Indonesia, comprising individual- and community-run homeschooling entities.
She admitted that many individual-run homeschooling entities had yet to register themselves with local education agencies, but gave an assurance that the community ones did comply with existing regulations.
“Rather than using the term control or supervision, why not embrace them? Educate them, one way is through our association. We’re continuously trying to invite them to join our association. The government shouldn’t always be in every line of our lives,” she told reporters on the sidelines of the event.
Education and Culture Ministry parallel education head Subi Sundoro, said the study lacked a representative sample and clear radicalism indicators. If the homeschooling entities were indeed based on religion, then they would have to be regulated under the Religious Affairs Ministry.
He said, however, that he would inform regional education agencies to improve monitoring and evaluation of the homeschooling entities in their regions.
“Local agencies need to proactively collect data on homeschooling, that way I believe we can reduce the possibility of exposure to radicalism,” he told The Jakarta Post after the discussion.
