Not Just a Decline

The numbers fell like leaves in a merciless dry season. From more than 4.8 million, the total number of santri nationwide has gradually shrunk to around 1.3 million over four years. Not merely a drop. It is like a lift whose cable has snapped, sliding downwards without pressing the emergency button. The world of pesantren, which for so long we have regarded as the nation’s final fortress of morality, suddenly appears as a fortress without a guardian.

In truth, when we talk about the ‘good intentions of the state’, it feels like a wedding banquet buffet: abundant. There is Pesantren Law No. 18 of 2019 promising recognition, affirmation, and facilitation.

Even, in the Prabowo Subianto administration, a dedicated Pesantren Directorate-General was prepared under the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Complete. Formal. Majestic on paper. Yet, curiously, the more regulations there are, the fewer santri there are. It is like someone who buys expensive fitness equipment but ends up exercising less.

Then we begin to ask, with a slightly suspicious tone: could the problem lie here? When pesantren are over-managed, perhaps they slowly lose their organic vitality.

In the past, parents sent their children to pesantren out of a call of faith. Now they start calculating it as an investment: what are the costs, what is the output, and can it compete with public schools?

Here, economic conditions intervene like an unwelcome guest. After the Covid-19 pandemic, many families have not fully recovered. Sending a child to a pesantren is not merely paying tuition; it is a full package: dormitory, meals, books, and pocket money.

Meanwhile, in schools, especially state ones, it is free or almost free. Children can help their families, become riders, assist in managing a shop, or at least look after younger siblings. Economic rationality works without the need for a fatwa.

The next question is even more intriguing: do students in public schools also fall? National data rather shows a relatively stable trend, or even increases at some levels.

In other words, this is not just a demographic crisis or a decline in the number of school-age children. The decline in student numbers is specific: pesantren may be losing appeal in the eyes of some segments of society.

This is where we need to be honest, even if it tastes a bit bitter on the tongue. Pesantren face internal challenges that are not small. The curriculum sometimes feels far from the needs of the age, facilities are not evenly distributed.

The old stigma still lingers, that pesantren graduates are ‘less competitive’ in the modern job market. In an era when junior high students already talk about coding and AI, some pesantren are still busy debating the Kitab kuning without a bridge to the realities of the modern world.