Recognition of Pesantren Education in the Indonesian National Education System: A Legal-Educational Analysis

Abstract

The enactment of the Law on Pesantren in 2019 completed a long process by which Indonesia's oldest educational institution acquired explicit statutory recognition, including recognition of pesantren graduates' qualifications and eligibility for state support. Recognition resolves genuine problems of certification and financing, yet it also subjects a historically autonomous institution to the standardising pressures that accompany formal incorporation. This article aims to analyse the legal structure of pesantren recognition, to assess its educational consequences, and to identify the conditions under which recognition can be achieved without erosion of the institution's distinctive character. The study combines normative legal analysis of the statutory framework with institutional analysis drawn from organisational theory, in particular the concept of institutional isomorphism; no field data were collected. The analysis finds that the statute is unusual and commendable in defining pesantren by function rather than by form, protecting the authority of the kiai and the distinctiveness of the institution while granting equivalence of qualifications; that the principal risk lies not in the statute but in the downstream instruments through which equivalence, financing, and quality assurance are operationalised, since each carries coercive, mimetic, or normative pressure toward the organisational forms of formal schooling; and that the equivalence mechanism is the decisive pivot. It recommends that equivalence be assessed against demonstrated competence rather than against structural conformity, that financing instruments avoid conditioning support on formal-school features, and that quality assurance be built on the tradition's own standards of mastery.