Gontor: Holistic education is not new, it has been practiced from the beginning

Holistic education may be a growing global concept, but Pondok Modern Darussalam Gontor says it has been part of its system since the school opened in 1926.

Speaking at the Global Islamic Holistic Education Summit in Jakarta, Gontor leader KH Akrim Mariyat said the modern Islamic boarding school model has never confined education to classroom lessons. Boarding life, the integration of religious and general knowledge, character formation, practical skills and social education all form part of the system.

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Even though it is modern, it remains a boarding school. PMDG is a boarding school. This is genuinely Indonesian.

Akrim said Gontor began with simple lessons close to the needs of its community. Children and local residents learned religious purification, bathing, prayer, health and basic daily-life skills. The institution later expanded without abandoning its identity as a pesantren.

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Our goal is to make our students virtuous, physically healthy, broadly knowledgeable, free-thinking and broad-minded.

“Even though it is modern, it remains a boarding school. PMDG is a boarding school. This is genuinely Indonesian,” Akrim said. He contrasted Gontor's aims with colonial education, which he said was partly designed to supply government employees.

“Our goal is to make our students virtuous, physically healthy, broadly knowledgeable, free-thinking and broad-minded,” he said. Gontor also introduced general subjects and skills from its early years, including weaving and cooking. Akrim said graduates are expected to carry those qualities into their communities and fields of service.

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We teach general subjects and skills. We teach weaving, cooking and other things.