En these times of debate on the role and objectives of educational establishments of a religious nature, such as the Catholic college, Stanislas, in Paris, or the Muslim high school, Averroès, in Lille, and their relations with a secular State, it It may be useful to turn to another great democracy, Indonesia. In this country of 275 million inhabitants, including 230 million Muslims, secular and religious education engage in intense economic and ideological competition with profound consequences on its political, cultural and ideological development.
This fight pitted religious tradition against the bloody military dictatorship of President Mohamed Suharto (1921-2008), a dictatorship served by Lieutenant General Prabowo Subianto, 72, elected on February 14 to the Indonesian presidency in the first round with more than 55 votes. % voices.
Islamic culture has always played an important role in education in Indonesia. The oldest religious schools, pédantrenalmost entirely devoted to religious study, date from the 15the century. Madrasas, the most widespread today, appeared at the very beginning of the 20th century.e century with a view to modernizing education and countering Western influence.
Madrasas, organized on the model of secular schools, nevertheless include a significant part of religious studies. Samuel Bazzi, Masyhur Hilmy and Benjamin Marx, the authors of a study entitled “ Religion, Education, and the State » (“Religion, Education and State”) estimate that 26% of instruction in madrasas concerns religious subjects, from ethics and Muslim doctrine to learning Arabic.
Direct competition with the public sector
In addition to learning in madrasas, religious schools also organize evening classes on the study of the Koran. These schools are largely financed by private funds, donations from local communities and registration fees, but also by donations from Persian Gulf countries, the amount of which remains opaque.
Public education, for its part, experienced unprecedented growth in the 1970s. More than 61,000 schools were built under the leadership of Suharto and thanks to the financial windfall from the first oil crisis. The objective of this expansion, beyond guaranteeing a level of primary education for all, was also to counter religious influence and to homogenize and build the Indonesian nation by offering common instruction in Bahasa, the vernacular language. , through this gigantic archipelago of 17,000 islands with 700 different languages.
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