Gontor: Holistic Education is Not a New Concept, It Has Been Practised Since the Beginning
Pondok pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) are considered to possess strong assets to meet global educational challenges because, for a long time, they have not limited education to classroom activities. The boarding system, the integration of religious and general sciences, character building, skills training, and social education mean that modern pesantren possess many elements that have recently become known globally as holistic education.
This was discussed at the Global Islamic Holistic Education Summit (GIHES) in Jakarta on Saturday (5/9/2026). The leader of Pondok Modern Darussalam Gontor (PMDG), KH Akrim Mariyat, stated that the idea of holistic education, which is currently widely discussed globally, has a strong intersection with the educational system that has long developed in pesantren.
“This seminar is about global education, holistic education. What is the connection between modern pesantren and this global or holistic education?” said KH Akroll.
According to him, PMDG was established in 1926, whereas holistic education as a global discourse only became widely discussed decades later. In the early period, he noted, education in Gontor began with very simple matters closely related to the needs of the community.
“At Gontor in 1926, we started with very simple education,” said Akrim. He continued that children and the community at that time were taught matters such as purification, bathing, prayer, health, and the fundamentals of daily life.
From that simple education, Gontor subsequently developed without abandoning its fundamental character as a pesantren. Akrim emphasised that the term “modern” does not erase the identity of the pesantren as a distinctive educational institution of the Nusantara region.
“Despite being modern, it remains a pondok. PMDG is a pondok. This is authentically Indonesian,” he said.
He compared the orientation of pesantren education with the school systems that developed during the colonial era. According to Akrim, colonial education was partly directed towards meeting the needs of government employees. Gontor, he stated, was not built with such an orientation.
“Our goal is to make our students highly virtuous, physically healthy, broadly knowledgeable, free-thinking, and great-souled,” said Akrim.
These four orientations, according to him, are not intended to be mere educational slogans. All alumni are expected to carry these characters when returning to society and engaging in their respective fields of service.
Religion, General Science, and Skills
Akrim stated that one of the significant changes brought by Gontor is not limiting pesantren education to religious sciences. According to him, since the early period of its development, general subjects and skills have been introduced to the students.
“In the past, pesantren did not teach general sciences, but Gontor, since its founding in 1926, has taught general sciences,” he said.
He mentioned that skills training even became part of the process. “We teach general subjects and skills. We teach weaving, cooking, and so on,” said Akrim.
Within this framework, education does not stop at the ability to know something. Students also need to be equipped with the ability to live alongside other human beings.
“There needs to be education for living, for living with others, so that we can live together with others,” he said.
Akrim also emphasised that the pursuit of knowledge in Islamic education has a spiritual orientation. Knowledge should not make a person move further away from God, but rather lead them towards submission.
“Learning knowledge is for worship,” he said, quoting a verse from the Quran, wa yatafakkaruna fi khalqis-samawati wal-ardh. “Knowledge must lead to humility. The more knowledgeable one becomes, the more humble they become.”
Hamid: Conventional Education is No Longer Sufficient
In the same forum, the founder of the Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought and Civilisations (INSISTS), Prof. Hamid Fahmy Zarkasyi, observed that the need for holistic education is becoming increasingly urgent amidst the development of digitalisation and artificial intelligence.
According to Hamid, educational systems that focus too heavily on rote learning, cognitive intelligence, and intellectual ability face significant challenges when some of these functions can be performed by technology. He even assessed that “conventional educational systems are no longer strong enough” to face the complexities of the modern era.
Therefore, Hamid believes that education needs to develop humans more comprehensively. It is not just about intellectual intelligence, but also emotional, spiritual, social, ethical, and aesthetic intelligence. Such education is necessary so that students possess mental resilience and flexibility in facing real problems in society.
Hamid assessed that pesantren have long possessed a structure that allows such education to take place. Modern pesantren combine intra-curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular activities, while uniting formal, non-formal, and informal education within a single environment.
With such a system, the pesantren campus simultaneously serves as a school, a home, and a community.