Pesantren As Indonesian Traditional Education Institution in Preparing the Alumni to Face The Twenty-First Century Challenges

Abstract

Pesantren is an Indonesian traditional education institution based on Islamic values or often calledtraditional pesantren. It initially focuses on learning that is only limited to morality and politeness values,which make pesantren considered backward in the academic side and science by Indonesian society.However, at the beginning of the twentieth century, there was a term 'modern' pesantren which combinedmoral, academic and scientific values as the learning focus, such as communication, collaboration, criticalthinking, creativity and innovative skills that make its graduates ready to face twenty-first-centurychallenges. This paper tries to portray on how pesantren, both traditional and modern pesantren, preparesand navigates their students to master the twenty-first-century skills namely communication,collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity to tackle future challenges. The researchers conductedinterviews with nine students of Faculty of Islamic Studies, Universitas Islam Indonesia who previouslyspent their high school years in either traditional or modern pesantren. We are finding that pesantrenalthough the types, traditional and modern will strive the world's dynamic, since pesantren's core valueshave successfully shaped attitudes and disciplines of it is alumni, and the involvement in religiousteaching in pesantren is essential and undebatable because it is the foundation of all knowledge taught.This research will provide valuable information regarding pesantren responding to modernity as Islamiceducation is supposed to consider the improvement of the learning process within preparing it is alumni toface the twenty-first-century challenges without forgetting it is identity.