Integrated Madrasah System: Analisis Kebijakan Surat Keputusan Bersama (SKB) Tiga Menteri Tahun 1975 dalam Transformasi Pendidikan Islam di Indonesia

The 1975 Joint Decree of Three Ministers (SKB Tiga Menteri) was a pivotal policy that changed the position of madrasahs within Indonesia’s national education system. This study aims to explain the background of the decree, its main provisions, and its implications for the existence of madrasahs, and to analyze whether the policy is better understood as an effort at integration or as state control. The study employs a literature review with a historical-descriptive approach to sources on Islamic education policy during the New Order era. The findings show that the decree emerged in response to Muslim concerns over Presidential Decree No. 34 of 1972 and Presidential Instruction No. 15 of 1974. It defined madrasahs as institutions that devote at least 30% of their curriculum to religious subjects, made madrasah diplomas equivalent to those of general schools, and widened graduates’ access to further education and employment. However, it also increased the curricular and resource burden on madrasahs and drew criticism that graduates became “neither fully religious nor fully secular scholars,” which raised concerns about the training of ulama and was later addressed through the Special Program Madrasah Aliyah (MAPK). The analysis concludes that the 1975 decree was a compromise between the state’s effort to standardize the curriculum and the Muslim community’s demand to retain the Ministry of Religion’s authority.