Title 59 Indonesian Islamic Schools’ Curriculum History: From Independence to the New Order Muhammad Zuhdi McGill University The main objective of this study is to examine the evolution of Islamic schools’ curriculum in Indonesia 1945 – 1990. Using the social constructionist perspective as an approach, this research is trying to see the significance of political and social changes to the development of Islamic schools’ curricula throughout the country’s history. This study examines the curriculum of Islamic schools in Indonesia. By Islamic school I mean a formal education institution in which Islam is the only religion officially taught as a belief, and which maintains Islamic practices as part of the school’s regulations. In Indonesia, there are currently three types of formal Islamic schools: The pesantren (religious and traditional boarding school), the madrasah (religious day school), and the sekolah Islam (a day school that combines secular curriculum and religious teachings). The existence of Islamic educational institutions in Indonesia has a long history, beginning before the independence of the country. Various types of institutions such as masjid (mosque), pesantren (mainly in Java), surau (in West Sumatra), and madrasah have functioned as educational sites wherein indigenous Indonesians have been taught to become “good Muslims” for centuries. According to 2001/2002 national education statistics, the total number of madrasahs (mainly private) offering elementary to high school level instructions is 37,362, which constitutes 17.06 % of total schooling (Ministry of National Education, 2002). However, this figure does not include a number of private Islamic schools (not registered as madrasah) that are supervised by the Ministry of Education, as well as non- recognized religious schools. Although Islamic education has a long history and has made its own significant contribution to society, formal recognition from the government was not granted until 1975 through the creation of the three-minister decree concerning the status of madrasah. Later, this decision was maintained by the 1989 National Education Act, the first act that explicitly referred to the madrasah as part of the Indonesia’s national education system. The main reason for the inclusion of Islamic schools as part of the secular education system was the country’s long history of Islamization and the role that Islamic education had played throughout the country’s history. This history has resulted, albeit belatedly, in the government’s accepting the responsibility of improving the quality of education in those schools, without transforming them into secular schools. The changing political circumstances throughout the country’s history have had a huge impact on the evolution of the Islamic schools, especially their curricula. Following independence, the government maintained the Islamic education institutions under the supervision of the Ministry of Religious Affairs (referred as MORA). Since then, the state has been directly involved in the development and supervision of some of these institutions. In addition to this political influence, the evolution of Indonesian Islamic schools has been also influenced by changes in society. The demand for more open-minded Islamic schools has thus resulted in alterations to the curriculum in various Islamic institutions. Research framework For the purposes of this research essay, curriculum is understood as subject matter, that is to say, “the curriculum is equated with the subjects to be taught” (Schubert 1986, 26). There are a number of reasons for using this definition. First, without intending to simplify the meaning of curriculum or the process of education, the content of curriculum or subject matter can be used to analyse the ideology and philosophy that exist behind a curriculum. Second, studying the curriculum as content or subject matter is somewhat more feasible than studying the practical classroom curriculum - as far as a historical study is concerned - because unlike the latter, the content is usually documented. Lastly, the study of curriculum as subject matter is the traditional approach used in the history of education in Indonesia. Among the most important goals of this study is that of discovering the reasons behind the selection of some subjects and the exclusion of others in religious schools’ curricula. These inclusions and exclusions not only reflect how the curriculum-makers view the importance of certain areas of knowledge, but they can also help us to see the ideological and political backgrounds behind those decisions. Therefore, it is important to raise questions such as “Who decides the subjects to be taught?” and “What were the considerations in deciding which subjects?” Ivor Goodson (1994) proposes certain directions for doing research in the field, two of which I use as general guidelines for my research. The first is the importance of the written curriculum document. Curriculum documents can provide me, as a researcher, with a great deal of information about how their authors view education and the importance of knowledge and skills, through examining both the rationale and the contents of the curriculum. The main reason for concentrating my study on the written curriculum is that, as Goodson (1994, 19) argues, “the written curriculum is the visible and public testimony of selected rationales and legitimating rhetoric for schooling.” The second crucial point that Goodson makes is the use of the social constructionist perspective in conducting a study of curriculum history. The basic assumption of the social constructionist perspective is that knowledge is never free from interests, politics and human experience. It is 60 something that is constructed based on individuals’ experiences, together with their ideological, political and cultural interests (Schwandt 2000, 198). Hence, a curriculum is not something taken for granted; it is created and constructed by certain people to be ‘taught’ to others. According to Goodson (1994, 19), “the school curriculum is a social artefact, conceived and made for deliberate human purposes. It is therefore a supreme paradox that in many accounts of schooling the written curriculum, this most manifest of social constructions, has been treated as a ‘given’.” The assumption of the curriculum as a social artefact is important in studying curriculum history, as far as the social constructionist is concerned, since this will enable one to view the relationship between the curriculum and its external factors. Although the social constructionist view of curriculum – which proposes students’ involvement in curriculum- making (see Gergen 1995, 32) – is different from the definition that I have chosen, it nevertheless offers a point of view that can help one to construct an understanding of the factors that influence curriculum decisions. One of the assumptions of the social constructionist orientation is that “the terms in which the world is understood are social artefacts, products of historically situated interchanges among people” (Gergen 1985, 267). It is from this standpoint that the evolution of curriculum in the Indonesian context will be explored; not as documented and silent texts, but as a source of information on how ideology, politics, and social changes influence curriculum. Early development of Indonesian Islamic schools’ curriculum (1945 – 1975) When the first Indonesian government established its national education system, this system was secular in nature. Existing schools incorporated into this system had to be secular in order to receive government’s funding. This of course left a vast number of Islamic schools – such as pesantrens and madrasahs – outside this network. These schools received no support from the government, even as they continued their efforts to educate a great number of Indonesian children. On March 1, 1946, Suwandi, the country’s second minister of education, set up a commission known as Panitia Penyelidik Pendidikan (Committee for the Investigation of Education) to examine the state of affairs of national education. One of the areas that interest them was the existence of Islamic schools, thus the committee made the following observation: “madrasahs and pesantrens which have became sources and sites of education for the indigenous Indonesian population, and whose existence has been widely accepted among the Indonesian people, deserve to receive the government’s attention and even some kinds of subsidies” (Steenbrink 1985, 96; Lee Kam Hing 1995, 34). This clearly indicates that Islamic educational institutions, despite the fact they were not formally recognized at the time, had been and remain – in the era immediately following independence – significant factors in the development of Indonesian education. The fact that Islamic educational institutions brought learning to so many young Indonesians in rural areas made their existence invaluable. Yet, the problem was that most of them did not have structured approaches to subject matter, let alone a curriculum. In view of the facts that these institutions focused mainly on religious instruction, the government decided to place them under the supervision of the Ministry of Religious Affairs (MORA), instead of the Ministry of Education. Therefore, in the initial formation of the MORA in 1946, its mandate included responsibility for religious education (Yunus 1992, 363). Since then, Indonesian education has been administered under two umbrellas: the Ministry of Education and the MORA. Later, to avoid confusion over the definition of “religious school” and “non religious school,” the Ministry of Education, together with the MORA, made the following categorization: an institution constituted a secular school if less than 50% of its curriculum was devoted to religious instruction, and a school was to be classified as a religious school if it had a curriculum including more than 50% religious instruction (Lee Kam Hing 1995, 75). Hence, the first is administered under the Ministry of Education, while the second is under the MORA. The issue of the composition of curriculum also proved crucial for obtaining government subsidies. In 1952, the MORA issued a decree concerning financial and other kinds of subsidies for madrasahs and other private Islamic institutions. Two of the requirements for obtaining the subsidy were that, in addition to religious instructions offered, an Islamic school should include the teaching of some non-religious subjects in its curriculum, the minimum requirement of: reading, writing and arithmetic for the three- year elementary schools, plus geography, history, basic sciences and health for six-year elementary schools; and the allocation of at least 30% of its total study hours per week for non-religious subjects (Sosromidjojo 1952, 265). The issue, however, did not lead the MORA to create standardized curricula for madrasahs and pesantrens. Beside the above issue, the MORA paid little attention to the creation of curriculum for Islamic schools during its initial development. This implies that the responsibility for this task remained in the hands of Muslim educators in each school. The main concern of the Ministry was to provide a sufficient number of teachers to teach religion in secular schools. Therefore, the first curriculum developed by the Ministry was the curriculum for the SGAI (Sekolah Guru Agama Islam/High School for Islamic Teachers), which later came to be known as PGA (Pendidikan Guru Agama/Education for Islamic Teachers). Students of these schools were mainly graduates from the madrasahs and pesantrens, who would be appointed to teach religion in public schools upon their graduation from the SGAI or PGA. At this point, it can be said that although the government acknowledged the existence of Islamic schools, there was no initiative to reform these institutions, and especially the curriculum. These institutions were solely dependent upon the expertise of their leaders. As a result, the curriculum of madrasah as well as its grading system varied from one institution to another. Hence, the 1952 National 61 Education Act did not recognize madrasah and pesantren as part of the National education system. In 1958, the MORA initiated the creation of the Kurikulum Madrasah Wajib Belajar (Religious School Compulsory Education Curriculum) in an effort to standardize and promote the improvement of the madrasah system throughout the country (Zuhairini et al. 1984, 80), especially at the primary level. It was expected that this model would encourage the private madrasahs to renew their systems. However, this program was unsuccessful in its implementation, and the private schools continued to run their own curriculum. The failure of the program inspired the government to create the Madrasah Negeri (State-sponsored madrasah) system with a clearer mandate and structure. The schools were organized in a fashion similar to that of the secular schools: Thus, the Madrasah Ibtidaiyah Negeri (elementary state madrasah) was on roughly the same level as the Sekolah Dasar Negeri (Public Elementary School), the Madrasah Tsanawiyah Negeri (junior secondary state madrasah) on that of the Sekolah Menengah Pertama (Public Secondary School), and the Madrasah Aliyah Negeri (secondary state madrasah) on that of the Sekolah Menengah Atas (Public High School). It is notable that most of the state-sponsored madrasahs were located on the property of private institutions. The turning point: the 1975 three-minister decree The country’s changing leadership in the late 1960s also had an impact to the development of Islamic schools. The ‘new order’i government under Suharto’s leadership believed that one of the best strategies for improving the quality of life of the Indonesian people was to enhance the quality of education. They furthermore presumed that the enhancement of the education system would only be possible if there is a single education authority responsible for all forms of schooling, instead of having various ministries run specific schools for their own purposes. For this reason, the government released a presidential instruction in 1972 require all formal education to be administered by the Ministry of Education. As no exceptions were mentioned in the instruction, the status of Islamic schools was left unanswered. It was understood that they should be administered by the ministry of education, yet many Muslim educators found this decision unacceptable. For them, the policy was an over- simplification of a complex situation that existed in the Indonesian education system in general, and in Islamic education in particular. Since the decision did not specifically acknowledge the existence of Islamic education institutions, they assumed that the government was trying to eliminate them through application of the so-called “pendidikan satu atap” (single umbrella education) policy. For this part, Muslim leaders maintained that Islamic education should be supervised by the MORA, because it was the only government institution with the expertise necessary for evaluating the competency of the Islamic schools. While acknowledging the weaknesses of the Islamic educational institutions, a number of Muslim educators approached the government asking it to exclude these schools from the presidential decree and make a special regulation for them. Furthermore, they proposed the idea of reconstructing the curriculum of Islamic educational institutions to meet government expectations, rather than merging them with secular schools, which would have been a sharp political disappointment to the Muslim people (Pondok Modern Gontor 1996, 168). In response, the government released a joint decree signed by three ministers: the Minister of Education, the Minister of Religious Affairs, and the Minister of Internal Affairs. The so called SKB 3 Menteri (three-minister joint decree) proposed the standardization of the curriculum of Islamic schools, through the installation of a national curriculum for all madrasah. The Madrasah Negeri, which had been instituted prior to this decision, became the model for private madrasahs. This decree was followed by MORA's decisions in 1976 to reform the composition of madrasah’s curriculum to comprise 30% religious instruction and 70% non-religious subjects, including languages, social studies, math, natural sciences, arts education, and the national ideology. Additionally, the new curriculum also introduced five programs of study (majors) within the Islamic high schools: Natural sciences, Social Sciences, Language and Culture, Religion (Islam in general), and Islamic Jurisprudence (see Zuhairini et al. 1984, 84-6). This was a very significant decision that not only changed the structure of the curriculum of the madrasah, but more importantly gave Muslim students more opportunities to explore branches of knowledge other than religion. This decision can also be seen as the result of a political negotiation between the government, which wanted the people to be sufficiently educated, and the Muslim leaders, who felt responsible for maintaining the faith of the Muslim people. Although many Muslim leaders viewed the 1975 joint decree as accommodating the demands of Muslim people and as testimony to the success of political negotiations between Muslims and the government, not all of them agreed that the new curriculum ensuing from the joint decree met the needs of Muslim students. As a result, the curriculum of Islamic schools throughout the country continued to exhibit local variations, some of which can be seen in the following selected responses to the 1975 decree. The responses First case: accommodation with combination Pesantren Tebu Ireng in Jombang, East Java is an example of the positive response to the national curriculum for madrasahs following the 1975 three-ministry decree. Actually, even before the introduction of the 1976 curriculum for madrasahs, Tebu Ireng had restructured itself to offer its students more non-religious subjects. Realizing that some of their students needed more “secular subjects” within a religious environment, since the early 1970s Tebu Ireng been offering two different kinds of schooling: madrasah, for those who wanted to perfect their religious knowledge, and 62 sekolah, for those who wanted to learn more non-religious subjects. In addition, Tebu Ireng also maintained the classic pesantren education after school hours, in keeping their original mandate. The enactment of the 1975 joint decree put Tebu Ireng in a difficult situation and forced its board to review their educational program. The difficulty was that, on the one hand, the national curriculum for the madrasahs had less religious instruction than theirs, so adopting it would make their madrasah no different from their sekolah. On the other hand, ignoring the national curriculum meant their certificate would not be recognized by the government, which would disappoint the students and their parents. This difficulty, however, did not prevent them from adopting the national curriculum. In the first thirty years of its history, under the leadership of KH Hasyim Asy’ari (a noted Islamic leader in Indonesian history), Tebu Ireng was meant to be a pesantren that educated young Muslims in order for them to become religious leaders. Therefore, the teaching materials focused heavily on Islamic knowledge. In its later development, however, and especially following the 1975 decree, the orientation of Pesantren Tebu Ireng (one of the biggest traditional education institutions) shifted from being an institution for religious experts to being an institution for all people Dhofier 1994, 113). Second case: independent school One of the most notable cases of an educational institution retaining its independence during the introduction of the national curriculum was Pondok Pesantren Gontor in Ponorogo, East Java. This pesantren was founded by three brothers: KH Ahmad Sahal, KH Zainuddin Fananie, and KH Imam Zarkasyi. Although each of the three made his own contribution to the development of Gontor, Zarkasyi was notably the most influential of them all. His achievements were acknowledged by the government in the form of an appointment as the chairman of the MP3A (Religious Education Council) under the Ministry of Religious Affairs in the late 1950s. Zarkasyi’s involvement in the government’s committees on religious education, however, did not compromise the independence of Gontor. Zarkasyi refused to implement the 1975 curriculum, as he believed that the one on offer at Gontor was better than what the government proposed. Zakiyah Daradjat (1996, 633) notes that Zarkasyi did not agree with the idea of standardizing the pesantrens, and hence he did not allow his students to take the national examination for Madrasah Aliyah (high school level) in order to acquire the government-recognized diploma. The main reason however for Zarkasyi’s decision, according to Daradjat, was the government’s imposition of Pancasila (the national ideology) as a compulsory subject. As a result, Gontor was not recognized as a formal educational institution according to the 1975 joint decree. That decision also had consequences for the status of the alumni of Gontor. While the students agreed that the different curriculum at Gontor was worthwhile, many of them needed a government-recognized certificate either to study in a public university or to find a job in public institutions. Fortunately for them, the system allowed them to take the national examination in other schools while maintaining their status as Gontor students. Third case: between religious and secular school As an educational institution using the national secular curriculum, Al-Azhar was not directly affected by the 1975 joint decree. However, as an Islamic school, Al-Azhar, founded in the late 1960s, reflected the shifting features of the Islamic schools. Unlike other Islamic schools in Indonesia, Al-Azhar was neither a madrasah nor, despite being run by a foundation called Yayasan Pesantren Islam Al-Azhar (Al-Azhar Islamic School Foundation), a pesantren (Busyairi, 2002). It chose moreover to adopt the Ministry of Education’s curriculum rather the one created by the MORA. However, Al-Azhar could not be categorised as a secular school either since it devoted a greater amount of time to religious education compared to some other schools run by Islamic organizations. Located in the strategic South Jakarta area, Al-Azhar offered the new Muslim middle class family a new model of Islamic school, which combined the secular curriculum with guided religious practices. The increasing numbers of the Muslim middle class in the late 1980s in Indonesia, following the rise of Indonesian economic development, had a significant impact on the growth of Al-Azhar. This is because families at this level preferred to send their children to a non-denominational school, while still maintaining religious practices. This is also another indication of the shifting role of Islamic schools, from parochial to “more secular.” In other words, Indonesian Muslim society had demonstrated a need for more schools that give students non-religious subjects combined with some religious values and practices, and fewer schools that prepare students to become religious experts. The new development of the Islamic schools The idea of political, economic and defence stability promoted by the New Order government, followed by successful explorations for petroleum in various parts of Indonesia and sky-rocketing oil prices in the world market in the late 1970s, brought about considerable economic development in the country. Subsequently, this development improved the per-capita income of Indonesian people and hence swelled the Muslim middle class from the late 1980s onwards. The emergence of the Indonesian Muslim middle class gained political momentum with the birth of ICMI (Organization for Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals) in 1990 (Syamsuddin 2001, 78). This organization united a great number of Indonesian Muslim scholars, as well as technocrats, in pursuit of the advancement of the people of Indonesia, especially its Muslim citizens.ii Although the organization was not founded as a political party, its contribution to the formation of the 1993 cabinet and parliament members was nevertheless considerable. B.J. Habibie, the first chairman of ICMI and one of the ruling 63 cabinet’s senior ministers, was the most influential figure in bringing a number of Muslim scholars and technocrats into the cabinet. The contribution was even stronger when B.J. Habibie himself was appointed as Vice-President in 1998, a few months before the fall of the New Order regime. The birth of ICMI and the growing role of the Indonesian Muslim middle class in the political and economic arenas were all indications that the issue of religion (i.e. Islam) retained a significant aspect in the development of these sectors. This development, furthermore, had a considerable effect on the future of Indonesia’s Islamic schools. The implementation of the 1989 Education Act is another evidence of the increasing role played by Indonesian Muslims in the political arena. Sirozi (1998) shows how Muslim leaders reacted when the first draft of the 1989 Bill proposed by the Ministry of Education did not specifically mention the position of religious education. Panji Masyarakat, a nation-wide Muslim magazine, reported the discussion of the bill among Muslim leaders in an article entitled “Sebuah RUU tanpa Iman (A Bill without Faith)”. The article reflected a strong desire on the part of the Muslim leaders that both government and parliament revise the bill before ratifying it (Panji Masyarakat, July, 1988). Sirozi (1998, 188) concluded that Muslim leaders build their arguments based on two rationales: “moralistic”, which stresses the importance of religious values, and “historical”, which implies the roles that Muslim educators have played throughout the history. At least three elements of the 1989 Education Act show evidence of the increasing role of Muslims in the political arena: first, the inclusion of the words iman dan taqwa (religious devoutness) as part of the general statement of the goals of national education; second, the recognition of the existence of Islamic schools in keeping with the 1975 three-ministry decree; and third, the obligation of religious instruction at every level of formal education. The new Islamic schools The changing political and social atmosphere that accompanied the country’s economic and political evolution under the New Order government brought with it a number of developments critical to the well-bieng of Islamic schools. First, thanks to their strong position in politics, the Muslim middle class has been able to maintain the status of the Islamic schools as part of the national education system. There has been even stronger political support for this recognition since the passage of the 1989 Educational Act, which recognized the madrasah as equal to secular schools. Second, the constituency of the Islamic schools has been broadened from including only “conservative religious” families to welcoming middle class and religiously moderate families as well. More parents are willing to send their children to the religious schools, in the belief that their children need religious values to protect them from the negative aspects of the secular world. Third, in their early development, the main goal of the Islamic schools was to train young Muslims to become, simply put, clerics. The changing constituency has forced many Muslim schools to change their educational goals, from producing ulama (clerics) to producing students with a broad understanding of various scientific disciplines and a strong commitment to religious life. Although there is no statistical data available regarding the exact number of new Islamic schools, the record from Al-Azhar Foundation can serve as an indicator. As mentioned earlier, Al-Azhar is a model of school that combines the secular curriculum set by the Ministry of Education and their own religious instructions and practices. The record indicates that in 1971, the Al-Azhar Foundation had only four formal schools at the elementary and junior secondary levels. In 1989, the total number of schools had grown to 14, including a number of high schools. This number continued to grow significantly to 31 schools in 1995 (Busyairi, 2002). Azra (2000, 74) notes that in the last twenty years, Al-Azhar has become the model for a number of newly developed Islamic schools. General Conclusion From an early point in Indonesian history, religious leaders have been important actors in Indonesian education, most often through the creation of various educational institutions. Although their main goal was to educate students to become good Muslims, nonetheless many of those institutions taught their students a variety of knowledge and skills apart from religious instruction. Therefore, following independence, the government could not ignore the existence of Islamic institutions in any discussion of the national education system. In other words, the government had no choice but to accept those institutions as part of the national education system. As a result, there have always been political negotiations regarding the place of religion (especially Islam) in any policy on national education. Furthermore, the creation of the 1950 and 1989 Education Acts indicated the similar fashion. These phenomena indicate that the issue of religious education remains a very crucial issue in Indonesia. For a great number of Indonesian people, religion is an important aspect of their life, especially when it comes to facing the issues of globalization and secularization. This is not only reflected by the changes in the education law, but also by the changing trends of schooling. For Indonesian Muslims, as for others, formal education is the best way to provide future generations with the necessary knowledge and skills for their future lives. Moreover, many Indonesian Muslims seem to agree that, in addition to knowledge and skills, religious instruction is another important aspect of education. With religion itself still an important aspect of their lives, they believe that religious education will provide young people with the values and beliefs that can help them cope with an increasingly globalized and secularized society. Therefore, the majority of Muslim people, especially their religious leaders were resistant to any efforts to secularize the Islamic schools, although they were more and more open to restructure their curriculum to a more “secular” way. The changing features of Indonesian Islamic schools throughout the country’s history indicated that both of the 64 politics and social changes have a significant influence to the evolution of curriculum. The government through the MORA has made invaluable efforts to support the modernization of various Islamic educational institutions, not only those of state’s schools, but also private institutions. Additionally, the changes in the society, most notably the increasing number of the Muslim middle class, influenced the way Islamic schools view the importance of knowledge. These phenomena clearly reflect what Kliebard (1992, 158) says that “the relationship between a society and curriculum is reciprocal”. References Azra, Azyumardi. 2000. Pendidikan Islam: Tradisi dan modernisasi menuju millenium baru [Islamic Education: Tradition and modernization towards the new millenium]. Jakarta: Logos Busyairi, Badruzzaman. 2002. Setengah Abad Al-Azhar [A Half Century of Al-Azhar]. Jakarta: Yayasan Pesantren Islam Al-Azhar Daradjat, Z. 1996. Gigih Memperjuangkan Madrasah [Great Efforts for Madrasah]. In Imam Zarkasyi di Mata Ummat [People’s Tributes to Imam Zarkasyi], edited by Panitia Penulisan Biography KH Imam Zarkasyi, 630-35. Ponorogo: Gontor Press. Dhofier, Zamakhsyari. 1994. Tradition and Change in Indonesian Islamic Education. 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A. 1986. Pesantren, Madrasah, Sekolah: Pendidikan Islam dalam Kurun Modern [Pesantren, Madrasah, Sekolah: Islamic Education in the Modern Era]. Jakarta: LP3ES. Yunus, Mahmud. 1992. Sejarah Pendidikan Islam di Indonesia [The History of Islamic Education in Indonesia]. 3rd ed. Jakarta: Mutiara Sumber Widya. Zuhairini, M. Kasiram, A. Ghofir, R. I . Santoso, A. M. Fadjar, and M. Fatawi. 1986. Sejarah Pendidikan Islam di Indonesia [The History of Islamic Education in Indonesia]. Jakarta: Proyek Pembinaan Prasarana dan Sarana Perguruan Tinggi Agama, Departemen Agama RI. i ‘New order’ is the official name for Suharto’s long run government to distinguish them with the previous leadership which is called the old order. The new order era ends in 1998 when Suharto left the presidential position. ii Some of the Muslim scholars (including then former president Abdurrahman Wahid) refused to join this organization as they believed that such an organization will only promote sectarianism among the religious people which is absolutely dangerous for a multi-religions state like Indonesia. Indonesian Islamic Schools’ Curriculum History: From Independence to the New Order Research framework Ivor Goodson (1994) proposes certain directions for doing research in the field, two of which I use as general guidelines for my research. The first is the importance of the written curriculum document. Curriculum documents can provide me, as a researcher, with a great deal of information about how their authors view education and the importance of knowledge and skills, through examining both the rationale and the contents of the curriculum. The main reason for concentrating my study on the written curriculum is that, as Goodson (1994, 19) argues, “the written curriculum is the visible and public testimony of selected rationales and legitimating rhetoric for schooling.”