Republika, page 12
Ministry of Religious Affairs (Kemenag) will establish an Islamic Boarding School (ponpes) quality assurance institution to improve the quality of the oldest Islamic educational institutions in the archipelago. This was revealed by the Director General of Islamic Education of the Kemenag, Kamaruddin Amin.
Kamarudin said that the plan is related to the standardization of pesantren/boarding schools. The Ministry of Religious Affairs targets the establishment of the institution to be completed by 2017. Currently, he continued, the draft Regulation of the Minister of Religious Affairs (RPMA) on the Quality Assurance of Pesantren is in the process of finalization.
He explained that the background of the establishment of this institution is because the Ministry of Religious Affairs observed a lot of pesantrens that do not meet the standards in Indonesia. Therefore, the Ministry of Religious Affairs wants to improve the pesantrens and obtain recognition from the communities that pesantrens are good Islamic educational institutions to educate children.
Kamaruddin added that the pesantren quality assurance institution would be different from the National Accreditation Board of Higher Education (BAN-PT) and the National Accreditation Board of Schools/Madrasahs (BAN-SM). In order to formulate the establishment of this institution, he would involve the pesantrens and later on this institution will be run by Kemenag and pesantren.
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