ENGAGING RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY IN ISLAMIC RELIGIOUS EDUCATION: PRACTICES AND CHALLENGES IN A MULTIRELIGIOUS PRIVATE VOCATIONAL SCHOOL

Abstrak

Islamic Religious Education (IRE) in Indonesia is expected not only to nurture students' faith but also to prepare them to live with religious difference. This study explores how IRE is practiced, and what challenges it faces, in SMK Yadika Baturaja, a private vocational school founded by a non-Muslim foundation in which 91.56% of the students are Muslim and the remainder are Protestant, Catholic, and Hindu. Using a qualitative case study design, data were collected from July 2022 to August 2023 through participant observation, in-depth interviews with seven purposively selected informants, and documentation, and were analyzed using Miles and Huberman's interactive model. Edward III's policy implementation model was used as the analytical lens for reading the school's compliance with Minister of Religious Affairs Regulation (PMA) No. 16/2010. The findings show that the school engages religious diversity through three interrelated practices: (1) a faith-specific organization of religious education, in which IRE is taught Monday to Thursday by a qualified Muslim teacher while Protestant, Catholic, and Hindu education is scheduled on Friday; (2) a resource arrangement that provides a mosque, dedicated worship rooms for non-Muslim students, and scripture-based learning resources; and (3) a school culture of tolerance in which students assist one another in religious events without compromising their own convictions. The main challenges are the absence of religious education laboratories, the lack of permanent worship places for non-Muslim students, weak policy socialization, and the financial limitations of a private school. The study argues that leadership disposition and a tolerant institutional culture can compensate for resource gaps, and it offers a transferable model for IRE in multireligious schools