International Journal of Indonesian Studies Volume 1, Issue 3 | Page 166

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INDONESIAN STUDIES
SPRING 2016
up to meet the educational gap in the Islamic-indigenous Indonesia in Dutch colonial era.
Muhammadiyah envied the way the Dutch provided schools only to the ChristianIndonesians. He then adopted western modern schools which provided its pupils additional
Islamic teaching. From 1913 until 1918, Dahlan promulgated five elementary schools, Hooge
School Muhammadiyah for the junior high school in 1919. He then altered the name, Kweek
School Muhammadiyah and in 1930 he separated schools for boys as Mu’allimin and for
girls Mu’allimat. Focus on Muhammadiyah modern Islamic schools will be explored next.
Although these modern Islamic schools were obviously in an ambivalent position in
projecting Dutch as the source of knowledge as well as oppression, they were able to raise
the indigenous sense of independence as shown in their willingness to become teachers of
those ‘wild schools’ and were willing to do it voluntarily. Such schools were so widespread
that in spite of the Dutch’s suspicion, the colonial administrators were not able to suppress
their influences among the indigenous. The schools, however, could not abandon the
teaching of European foreign languages within the paradox of the educational system. From
the onset of the Ethical Policy, Muhammadijah’s modern Islamic education, that combined
western and Islamic teachings, is prevalent until today. The former Dutch universities in
Indonesia were transformed into state-owned universities and many of the Islamic
universities are now mostly run by Muhammadiyah. Almost all of the schools and
universities in Indonesia then adopted the teaching of English as the sole significant foreign
language.
Four years after Indonesia’s independence, English Departments also started to be
founded at the university level. Table 2 shows that the first English Department was
established in the private nationalist-initiative university in Jakarta called Universitas
Nasional Jakarta in 1949. Table 1 show that the state-owned University of North Sumatera
then followed a similar step in 1952. On the first of October 1954, the famous English
Department of IKIP Malang (now Universitas Negeri Malang) was established, followed by
Politeknik Negeri Manado in the same year. Other state-owned universities such as
Universitas Syiah Kuala Banda Aceh established English Department in 1961, Universitas
Sriwijaya Palembang and IKIP Jogjakarta (now Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta) in 1964 and
Universitas Diponegoro Central Java in 1965. During three-and-half-year Japan interregnum
(1942-1945) and Sukarno era (1945-1965) there were approximately seven state-owned
universities which established English Departments. Despite promotion by the government,
the propagation of establishing English Departments was mostly led by Christian and
Catholics missionaries who then established Universities in several Christian-Catholics social
enclaves in Indonesia, such as Universitas Katolik Indonesia Atmajaya Jakarta in 1961,
Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana Salatiga in 1962, Universitas Kristen Petra Surabaya in
1963, Universitas Kristen Tomohon Sulawesi in 1964, as well as Universitas Katolik Sanata
Darma Jogjakarta and Universitas Klabat Manado North Sulawesi in 1965. The only modern
Islamic institution which established an English Department was Muhammadijah, i.e.
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