Academic calls Rahmah El Yunusiyyah the architect of educational civilisation
Padang (ANTARA) - Academic and Deputy Minister of Education from 2010-2011, Fasli Jalal, described the national heroine from West Sumatra, Rahmah El Yunusiyyah, as the architect of educational civilisation worthy of emulation in the current era.
“Rahmah El Yunusiyyah is not merely a female education figure; she is the architect of civilisation,” he said in Padang on Monday.
This was stated by Fasli Jalal at the national seminar titled “The Contributions of Rahmah El Yunusiyyah as a National Heroine in the Development of Indonesian Education”.
According to him, in the context of today’s Indonesia, which targets the Golden Indonesia 2045, the intellectual legacy of this female figure and founder of Diniyyah Puteri Padang Panjang becomes increasingly relevant.
Rahmah El Yunusiyyah has proven one important thing: educating women means building the foundation of civilisation. The turning point in her struggle to build education was when Rahmah saw the limitations of access to education for women.
“Rahmah also realised that women were only objects of education, not subjects,” he said.
From that condition emerged a revolutionary awareness that women must be educated systematically, seriously, and equally in quality. By founding the Diniyyah Puteri Padang Panjang school, she created an educational model with characteristics based on four important points.
In his presentation, he also addressed current educational challenges, including technological disruption and artificial intelligence, moral and identity crises, extreme individualism, and family fragmentation.
“All of this is directly related to the quality of women, whether as mothers, the first educators, and guardians of family values,” he said.
Therefore, he assessed that Rahmah El Yunusiyyah’s educational model is becoming increasingly relevant because it contains several important thoughts, including those related to mothers as the first educators and the key to superior human resources, as well as women as agents of moderation and social stability.
This also includes household education encompassing financial management, value-based child-rearing, decision-making, and conflict management, which has long been misunderstood as merely minor work.
Other models, such as the need for female preachers and female scholars based on systematic education, as well as the integration of religious knowledge and science, are also deemed highly relevant to the demands of 21st-century human resources and the needs of science and technology.
“So actually, if we want to build Golden Indonesia, do not start from universities or industry, but start from women. And if we want a model, there is no need to look far abroad because we already have a great legacy from Rahmah El Yunusiyyah,” he explained.